"Helps out where you want help, then gets the hell out of your way". That is the highest compliment I can think of. If you are a PHP programmer, and you haven’t taken a moment to look at some of the various upcoming PHP frameworks, do yourself a favour and stop reading now, and go to codeigniter.

PHP has other promising frameworks, but for my money, Code Igniter is the best. Yes Rails has gotten a lot of hype lately (most of it deserved in my opinion), but if you’re looking for a no-fuss, no-muss framework to help you get stuff done in PHP - check out Code Igniter. In addition to a mature framework (it’s built on top of the excellent Expression Engine code), it is actively developed and improved (thank you Rick Ellis), and has a vibrant, active and helpful community built around it.

When I started writing BambooInvoice, I began the project using the Zend framework. It was nice(ish) but clearly unfinished. Then I discovered CakePHP. Now Cake is a very impressive piece of work, but it still felt to me too much like I was programming in "Cake", and not in PHP. Code Igniter is like Linux, it helps me do what I need to do, and trusts that I know what I’m doing.

So there you go, I've officially added my vote to the growing legions.

Firefox is one of my favourite peices of software. Fast, secure, and most of all, open source. Even though I've been using it since its "beta" days, I continue to learn new tricks. There are many lists like this on the net, but I haven't found this stuff collected in one place before, so here are some of my favourite Firefox tips. I decided to stop at 8... I know 10 is cooler, but adding 2 more would take "filler".

… or "frist prost" if you read Slashdot.

The purpose of this blog is threefold. First, its a convenient way for me to stay in touch with current and former students. I’m a fairly prolific instructor, and I meet so many interesting people. It’s a shame to lose touch after the course is done, so this is one way to try to stay in touch.
I also wanted to use this blog to track the development and process of BambooInvoice, my open-source project. I describe BambooInvoice as Simple, beautiful, open source online invoicing. It is built on top of the excellent Code Igniter framework.

Finally, its just a convenient place to dump my thoughts on XHTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and the world of web programming in general!

So welcome, and thanks for reading.