Monthly Archives: November 2011

Use Custom PHP Extensions on Heroku

Nov 30 2011Blog, Code & DevelopmentCloud computing, documentation, Heroku, MongoDB, PECL, php, ProgrammingChris McLeod

Did you know you can use custom PHP extensions on Heroku? Neither did I, cos I can’t find it in the documentation. But you can:

https://gist.github.com/1288447

I came across this while searching for a way or workaround to use the MongoDB PECL extension on Heroku (don’t get me started on that…).

If you can’t be bothered checking the link, the summary is this:

Create a folder in your app called ‘ext’ or similar.
Copy your extension into this folder.

Create a php.ini file with the following contents:

extension_dir = "/app/www/ext/"
extension=mongo.so

Deploy

The Five Megabyte Web Developer | Benjamin Atkin (chrismcleod.me)
Running Heroku workers only when required (CTO Insights)

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Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS

Nov 28 2011

Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS:

SMACSS (pronounced “smacks”) is more style guide than rigid framework. There’s no library within here for you to download or install. SMACSS is a way to examine your design process and as a way to fit those rigid frameworks into a flexible thought process. It’s an attempt to document a consistent approach to site development when using CSS. And really, who isn’t building a site with CSS these days?!

Apple iMessage and Poor User Experiences • Matt Galligan

Nov 28 2011

Apple iMessage and Poor User Experiences • Matt Galligan.

Every one of my peeves and frustrations with iMessage, in one handy-dandy blog post.

iOS 5: iMessage (macstories.net)
iMessage coming to iChat? (techradar.com)

The Five Megabyte Web Developer | Benjamin Atkin

Nov 28 2011

The Five Megabyte Web Developer | Benjamin Atkin.

An interesting perspective on Heroku. As regular readers will have guessed, I recently started using Heroku for small experiments. So far I love it for being a low-friction way to try out something, and how I have the potential to quickly, easily, and relative cheaply scale any of these experiments which become popular. The article above did point out some limitations which I wasn’t clear on before, and which I’ll bear in mind. I wrote something similar in a comment to this blog post, this morning, but at the time of writing my comment is still awaiting moderation.

Like the author above, I looked into getting a VPS to have a “place of my own” to house such little projects, but ultimately decided against it. While it may offer you more control over configuration, resources, and fixed costs, ultimately you’re paying (or have paid) for the server even when you’re not using it. If you have several projects which all get regular traffic, then yes, it’s probably worth getting a VPS. But if you’re just testing the waters with a small idea every once in a while then I think it’s best to take advantage of platoforms like Heroku, App Harbor, PHP Fog, etc.

I’m having heaps of fun experimenting with the Facebook APIs. It’s definitely a learning experience, and it’s something I’ve kind of missed – just playing around with a technology, with absolutely no expectation anything will come of it.

That said, I’ve finally settled on what I’m going to try and build with all this experimenting. It’s a nice, little, fun app tied to a Facebook page.

Using the Facebook PHP SDK with CodeIgniter

Nov 25 2011Blog, Code & Developmentapi, codeigniter, Facebook, open graph, php, Programming, sdk, web developmentChris McLeod

Most of my small personal projects tend to get built with CodeIgniter (CI), which is a simple to use, fast, lightweight PHP5 MVC framework.

For a while now I’ve had an itch to build something fun against the Facebook API so I can start learning how Open Graph works, and as a primer to building a “proper” Facebook integrated application. I also realised I hadn’t actually tried using CodeIgniter 2.x since it was released (quite some time ago). With an abundance of free time this weekend it seemed like the perfect time to get hacking!

Before I could build anything I would need to know one thing: just how do you connect a CodeIgniter app to Facebook?

Continue reading →

Yesterday morning I imported the best bits (plus a few other entries) from two of my old blogs

These blogs had languished unloved for some time, but it felt wrong to just drop them or completely abandon them. So now the highlights – such as they are – are here for you to have a read through, so head on over to the archive page to browse through them.