Matt Williams
Tech, Gaming and Food Enthusiast
High level search with PHP and Apache Solr
Mar 18th
When data sets get large and MySQL database querying to search become too load heavy and slow, full indexing is required. Several solutions are available but in this article I will be demonstrating the Apache foundations Solr Java Lucene implementation. For this a Java build will be required. Linux or Mac is less of a problem but for windows I use the Apache Tomcat server.
Sorting table data with jQuery
Mar 18th
A plugin for jQuery called “tableSorter” makes life so much easier when you wish to sort certain columns on a table, for example filtering a table to make total amount (£) ASC or DESC.
The only HTML markup requirement is to assign the table with an id or a class in this example I have created a table like this:
<table id="sortingTable">
</tableExtending CodeIgniter’s validation routines
Mar 16th
One of the primary issues that developers avoid is code repetition, especially when more that 3 instances exist. When developing I follow the guidelines best explained by:
If you do it more than 3 times, functionalise. If you do it more than 10 times, refactor.
My most recent project is built using the CodeIgniter (CI) framework which I was extremely impressed with. The level of abstraction and ability to extend makes CI a very appealing solution to any developer.
JavaScript – experience enhancer or dictator
Feb 18th
A few days back it nearly ruined both my life and my sanity!
When I first started working as a commercial web developer the first idea that really hit me was the use of JavaScript and AJAX. My first senior developer always ranted on at me about ‘graceful degredation’ and I plodded along, blissfully unaware of the implications of ‘enhancing’ a website using JS.
The main issue that I was missing was that a very very very small percentage of users actually do browse with JavaScript disabled. “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?”, I thought. I fought for a long time with the idea that someone would actually purposefully disable a feature which makes browsing 10 times easier.
