11.04.2008
By sexy I mean good-looking but I knew using the words “free”, “sexy”, and “photo” in a post title would be worth at least 50 Google bonus points, so I couldn’t pass it up. Here’s the premise of my post:
1) I have my own web server (which supports PHP).
2) I’m too cheap to purchase good photo gallery software.
3) I’m too cheap to pay for photo-hosting services like Google Picasa or Flickr.
4) I want my photo gallery to be sexy (smooth, clean, silently loads upcoming photos, doesn’t have to load a new page for each photo, etc.).
5) I want my photo gallery to be able to support categories/events.
6) I want to be able to host hundreds of photos.
5) I want my photo gallery to be as hassle-free as possible.
So, after looking at my options, I found they were much more limited than I had hoped. Don’t get me wrong–there were a lot of options, just not a lot of good ones. In the end, I found a solution that seems to appease me for the time being. Here’s the end result for all you instant-satisfaction-seekers: http://hardyhacienda.com/photos/
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02.10.2008
With the advent of Flex and RIA (Rich Internet Application) development came AMF (Action Message Format). Flex, in general, focuses only on front-end functionality, meaning it does not directly hit a database to store or retrieve persistent data. Instead, database calls are written in a more traditional back-end language like Java, PHP, Python, or .NET and such services are then exposed to be “consumed” (used) by the Flex front-end.
AMF is a protocol that allows ActionScript (the language of Flash/Flex) to call services exposed by the back-end. Additionally, if you choose, AMF allows you to translate a programmer-defined object between ActionScript and your back-end language of choice. In other words, if you have a customer class in ActionScript and you want to pass an instantiated customer object to the back-end, you simply call the exposed back-end service and pass the customer object as a parameter. The AMF layer transparently translates the ActionScript customer object into, let’s say, a customer object in Java. This functionality isn’t required. Instead of using a class you have defined, you could instead just send an integer to the backend as a parameter and, after processing, send a string back to the front-end. Continue reading »
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08.07.2007
I’m currently studying Information Systems at Brigham Young University where the main language being taught to students is Java, a very object-oriented language. Some students, after having learned Java, have difficulty making the jump from Java to PHP for one reason or another. While I do not profess to have reached the level of Zen Master in PHP, I do hope I can provide some insight in a way that fellow ISys junkies can take what they’ve learned and pick up PHP if they want. Continue reading »
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