December 18th, 2006
One of the reasons I started getting active in the Code Igniter community was because of... um... well, the community. The people who are active are such interesting people, who give a lot of themselves back into the framework. You only need to look at the very active forums to see this happening. Community contributions are cropping up all over, including CIForge.com, as well as numerous independent efforts to educate and evangelize. People from all walks of life are drawn to Code Igniter, presumably for the same reason I was. It just plain rocks. It helps you build faster, it helps you build more organized, and it helps you build more securely.
In fact, CI is so sweet, that you could download the framework and never visit the site again, and be instantly more productive... but if you really want to push the bounds, then you need to spend some time in the community wiki. The wiki is a mysterious, fantastic place - and if you can sort through the disorganization and flux, there are some real treats in there. In fact, nearly every project I've built has used something from the wiki*. So in no particular order, here are my top eight, wiki resources.
Continue reading “Top 8 Code Igniter Wiki Resources”. Posted in
CodeIgniter with 11 comments 
December 07th, 2006
If you use pretty much any browser except IE 6 (more on that later) when you visit this site, you've probably noticed that the dark-grey sidebar scrolls with you just until the banner and menu are off the page, and then locks itself into position or "sticks". When you scroll back to the top, if the menu and/or banner need to be seen again, the sidebar politely resumes its normal scrolling duties. Go ahead, try it now, I'll wait. Fun isn't it? I've had a number of people comment on that, so I thought I would outline how I accomplished it.
Continue reading “Conditionally Sticky Sidebar”. Posted in
Browsers, Javascript with 13 comments
December 04th, 2006
One of my favourite Firefox extensions has just released a new version. Firebug announced today that the 1.0 version is out now in beta, and even more importantly, has been released under the same open source license as Firefox itself. From the site: Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
Fancy-pants DOM features abound, and the usual AJAX debugging goodness is in there. Thanks go to Joe Hewitt.
Continue reading “Quick Link: Firebug 1.0 is out in beta”. Posted in
Browsers, Quick Links with no comments
December 03rd, 2006
I've had a few requests asking how I built my RSS feed since I'm using a custom built Code Igniter blogging system. Actually, it was pretty straight forward, but I thought I'd take a few moments to outline step by step how I did it.
Continue reading “Building an RSS Feed in Code Igniter”. Posted in
CodeIgniter, How-To with 6 comments
November 30th, 2006
Let me reveal the Derek Allard Action Figure™ to the world! Yup, that's right, an action figure! Kung-fu grip and everything. Well, not really kung-fu grip. I guess that'll be kind of obvious when you look at the pictures below. Jennifer Dungan is a former student of mine who now earns her living as a freelance web designer/developer. Despite being busy coding up actionscript wizardry, she finds time for her hobbies. Now some people (not me I swear!) would say that this is an unusual hobby... but its hard not to admire the talent, skill and patience that goes into a project like this.
Check out the images to see what I mean! But first, let's get one thing absolutely clear... this is a Derek action figure, not a doll!
Continue reading “Derek Action Figure”. Posted in
Education, Personal with 14 comments
November 27th, 2006
Over the last little while, I've documented how this site is changing. I thought I had arrived at a pretty stable look, but if you are a keen observer, you may notice that the the hanging robot on the side of my site has changed. How do you start a blog post about a robotic chimp that's hanging out on your site? It's hard, but I wanted to chronicle the evolution of the hanging robot, and see if I couldn't find him a name.
This story starts with an innocent email from a good friend and colleague (and skilled artist), Cliff. He wrote ...love the new look, but hate that hanging robot on the side
.
Continue reading “Evolution of an Evil Robotic Chimp”. Posted in
Noteworthy, Personal with 5 comments
November 27th, 2006
For reasons I'll disclose in the near future, I've recently been convinced that Scriptaculous, despite my thoughts on its "bloat", is in fact the best library for me to focus in on if I'm going to integrate it with Code Igniter. I'm currently committed to a project that I'm just finishing off that I've been developing using Mootools, but when its done any work I do in this area will probably be on Scriptaculous integration. I'll release the mootools library when I'm done of course!
Continue reading “Thoughts on a Javascript Library Integration with Code Igniter”. Posted in
CodeIgniter, Javascript with 4 comments
November 19th, 2006
Hmm... lools like my love affair with SQL related posts continues.
MySQL has posted an excellent resource posted called Top 10 SQL Performance Tips. Although, it is kind of a misleading name, since its a wiki, and everybody is able to post. Currently it's up to 84 tips, most of which look really great. Here is a small sampling...
Continue reading “Top 10 SQL Performance Tips”. Posted in
How-To, PHP with 1 comment
November 14th, 2006
UGH! So apparently I need one of those Matrix-style brain implants to help me remember SQL.
I'm writing this down now as both a personal reminder... and maybe I'll save you from the same fate. When writing the archive for this blog, I wanted to create friendly URLs, so that /blog/archive would display all posts, /blog/archive/2006 would show all of the posts from 2006, and finally /blog/archive/2006/11 would show all of the posts from November of 2006. Simple enough right?
Continue reading “Writing SQL with HAVING vs WHERE clauses”. Posted in
How-To, PHP with 5 comments
November 13th, 2006
Well, this humble blog started as a standard Wordpress install. I quickly moved to the Hemmingway theme, but then thought that my site lacked any of my personality. So I set about to rebuild it. My first attempt was chronicled on this blog. My intentions were to make it available as a Wordpress theme for anyone to download.
Continue reading “DerekAllard.com has been rebuilt”. Posted in
CodeIgniter, Noteworthy with 8 comments
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