Author: mary

Why I love Akismet!

I love Akismet because it has saved me a lot of time and ibuprofen (that I would be taking for the headaches I would get trying to ward off spammers. Here’s why:

Akismet Spam

Now this blog hasn’t been around for that long, considering that I made my first post on June 13 of this year, and I haven’t been posting as regularly as I would like, so to have been hit with that amount of spam in such a short time is something to think about!

Let’s think about this for a few minutes: This blog has been online for about 6 months now, that’s approximately 180 days, give or take. If you do the math, you find that this comes to about 8 spam messages a day!! Wow!!

Since I have comment moderation turned on, without Akismet I would be getting on average 8 emails a day to moderate comments on this blog alone!

Do you see now why I love Akismet?

If you have a WordPress blog, make sure that you enable Akismet, it will save you lots and lots of time!

Venturing into flat-file Content Management Systems

Life has been busy with school and all taking up an inordinate amount of my time. However, I have also been playing around with some small coding projects. I have some big ideas but they’re going to need a lot of time to build. I realized that to get these projects off the ground I’ll need to really buckle down and work on my PHP coding skills, so these projects will have to wait till next year.

Apart from that, I’ve been working on some small website projects using PHP, and one thing I’ve been playing with is the concept of flat-file content management systems. These are content management systems that don’t use a database to store information, but instead, the information is stored in text files. If you have worked with any of the database-based content management systems before, such as Joomla, Mambo, or MODX, you know that they are pretty heavy duty, and sometimes resource hungry because of all the utility and functionality that the try to provide.
Flat file CMS’s are ideal for smaller websites that don’t require loads of information to be pulled from many different places at the same time. Since I am just starting to explore these kinds of systems, all I want to do in this post is introduce the concept to you and explain why I think it’s such an attractive option. Here are advantages, I am finding, of using a flat-file CMS:

  1. I don’t need a database – This is useful because one of the hosting accounts I use offers only a limited number of mySQL databases, but unlimited add-on domains. So I can reserve the mySQL databases for my bigger websites and use flat-file CMSs for my smaller websites. With today’s ever-expanding hosting solutions, this might not be an issue for most people, but it’s definitely an advantage to keep in mind.
  2. Installation is easy – Flat-file CMSs are a breeze to install and setup, since all the configuration information is in easily accessible files.
  3. Updates are easy -Unlike most major CMSs where updates involve going back and figuring out what to do with all your plugins, and what files had you edited where, updating flat-file CMSs is a breeze since changes are usually to specific files and are easy to implement. And because you’re not working with databases, updates are an easy DIY task.
  4. Editing and tweaking is easy – Most of the flat-file CMSs that I have had a chance to glance at are written in PHP, so they are easy to figure out and tweak. As I mentioned in a previous post, playing with CMSs is a great way to master PHP.

There are a number of flat-file CMSs out there and I will be talking about them in future posts. The one that I am currently dabbling with is NanoCMS, a nice little flat-file CMS that is proving to be quite useful and easy to play with, so you may want to check it out if you need to whip up a quick website without much ado.

Large csv file? Download the CSV Splitter

If you have a large csv file that you have tried to open in Excel, you know how troublesome that can be, because Excel is limited in the number of rows and columns of data it can handle – 65,536 rows of data and 256 columns per worksheet. Truncation of rows or columns in excess of the limit is automatic and is not configurable.

I discussed this problem before in the post Splitting large csv files – the CSV Splitter where I introduced you to Scorpion’s nifty little program, the CSV splitter, which takes large csv files and splits them into separate smaller files and you decide how many rows you want each file to be. Previously, as you will see if you read my post on Splitting large csv files, you had to register on the forums to be able to download it. Scorpion just updated me that he has now provided a direct download link so that you no longer have to register but can download the csv splitter directly.

You can now download the csv splitter directly here.

The program is easy to use and is a lifesaver if you are like me and frequently work with large csv files. You can Splitting large csv files – the CSV Splitter read more about the csv splitter, and please do leave a thank you for Scorpion.

A perfect way to learn Windows and Web Development

That’s an ambitious title, isn’t it? Well, I hope my recent discovery can live up to it. A while ago I introduced you to #develop, an open source development environment for .NET.

Today I want to point you to Microsoft’s own free development and learning tools for those who want to delve into Windows and Web development. It’s called the Beginner Developer Learning Center. Here, you can download all the tools you need to start developing Windows and Web applications on your desktop, along with tutorials that walk you through the learning process. This is excellent because it gives you a well developed and professionally laid out guide to programming, using the very same tools you would use in a professional situation.

I definitely recommend that you check and make use of the Beginner Developer Learning Center as a resource to get you on your way to becoming a professional programmer, if this is your platform of choice.