A very clear post in Open Sourcery PUT or POST: The REST of the Story about the difference between PUT and POST in REST. What the post doesn't make clear enough, though, is that PUT requests can be cached, while POST aren't.
Hands-on technical stuff, mostly to do with with Mac OS X or web development.
Tim Brown: More perfect typography
A geeky approach to layout and typography - full lecture on Vimeo.
Starting an HTTP server from any folder in OS X
One liner to start an HTTP server from any folder in OS X: alias server='open http://localhost:8000 && python -m SimpleHTTPServer'/via Jeffrey Way
Combining images with ImageMagick
Assorted ImageMagick commands to combine images (I use them for screenshots of interesting sites). Latest: arranging images in a grid
How to Make Your JavaScript Fast
Mozilla's David Mandelin has published an interesting slideshow about JS optimization. Here are the takeaway points in case it disappears.
More CSS goodness
CSS is in serious danger of becoming sexy. If animations, transitions, and CSS shaders weren't enough, layout modules are on the way.
How to create a Sublime Text 2 snippet
Snippets are pieces of text, with or without placeholders, that you can have your editor paste in when you type a shortcut. Many editors have them; here's how to create them with the Sublime Text 2 editor.
Configuration properties for Jasmine maven plugin
The configuration properties for the jasmin maven plugin in XML format. From the the Jasmine maven plugin homepage and the plugin source
Showing passed Jasmine tests by default
I am sure I have missed an obvious config setting, but the quickest way I found to display passed tests in Jasmine when the page loads, without having to click on the checkbox, is with a JS function that uses the proxy / decorator pattern.
Google Developer Day Berlin, 2011
Interesting day at the GDD Berlin. Didn't learn anything that blew me away, but it was good to see Google's enthusiasm for sharing their technology with developers. Still not convinced about DART, but the food wasn't bad.
[Update] all the slides from GDD Berlin are now available online
Eclipse shortcuts
As I am moving to the Sublime Text editor, here are some Eclipse shortcuts before I forget them through lack of use.
PHPUnit assertions
For my reference, a list of PHPUnit assertions from the PHPUnit book
Extract, transform, and load (ETL)
Extract, transform, and load (ETL) is a process in database usage and especially in data warehousing that involves: (E) Extracting data from outside sources; (T) Transforming it to fit operational needs (which can include quality levels); (T) Loading it into the end target (database or data warehouse).
Advanced Evernote search
It isn't immediately obvious, but Evernote offers advanced search operators.
Google Maps introduces weather
Facebook continuos integration cycle
There is an interesting screencast by Chuck Rossi, release manager, on how they manage the release process at Facebook. Worth seeing, but if you haven't got the time, here's a quick executive summary.
PHP 5.4 introduces short arrays
The more time I spend coding in Javascript, the more PHP feels old and clumsy. Many developers feel that way, and that's probably why they introduced a small, JS-like improvement in PHP 5.4 - short arrays: $a = [1, 2, 3, 4];
$a = ['one' => 1, 2, 'three' => 3, 4];
Beyond polyfills: sugar.js
Avoid the mysql extension in PHP
There are a few different ways of handling MySQL in in PHP. Ext/mysql, i.e. the functions that start with mysql_xxx, is the oldest and most well known. It is also insecure, doesn't use all the database features, and will be phased out and in future releases. Use mysqli instead, or at least pdo_mysql.
Web Intents
Paul Kinlan's Web Intents post ends with "This project will fundamentally change and improve the way we build applications on the web today for our users". A strong statement - and to be fair, the project does look interesting.
Still very early days though.
So far there is a WebIntents API on github, some examples on Intent: Share and some examples on webintents.org.
Hello Alfred, and farewell Quicksilver
Quicksilver has been moribund for a while*, and it was only a matter of time before I switched to Alfred. The switch was much simpler than I anticipated - I had the two apps running side by side until I was satisfied I could do the same things with both. Didn't take long at all.
Awesome Screenshot browser extension by diigo.com
Just installed the Awesome Screenshot browser extension by diigo.com on Chrome - very happy with it. So far it's the best extension of its type I have tried. You can quickly just save the screen grab as is, or you can annotate it first, which is very helpful. 5 stars.