Category: Uncategorized

I was recently introduced to a client hosted on Pantheon.io, a hosting platform packed with some really great features, services, and tech support. I really like their site as well, their catchy logo just put the cherry on top. After using Pantheon for a couple days, I couldn’t help but spend some quality time with this hosting platform. Let me tell you, user interface goes a long way when choosing a hosting platform at least for me.

Continue reading “Pantheon.io Hosting Review”

This little tidbit I consider a golden nugget for those looking to optimize their website’s page speed. I ran into a situation recently (actually times) where I needed to defer some scripts down to the footer area. If you’ve been developing a while now, you know about render blocking scripts. Put simply, we want our DOM to load first before any scripts are executed.

Continue reading “Script Loader Tag using WordPress”

I’m actually not very well versed with using Flex (I definitely should though of course), I really only use it when absolutely necessary – usually as a fall back plan or when I want to adjust a few elements on mobile. That’s what this post is really about – Flex and how it saved me numerous times on one (no, many) of those head scratcher projects.

Continue reading “Mobile Stacking Order using Flex”

Sockets. Let’s first get that out of the way. We can at least understand what “Secure” and “Layer” means. Not that the concept of sockets should overshadow it’s phrase constituents but it’s important to get a basic understanding of what’s really going on under the hood.

SSL encryption has been around for a very long time, besides having a fast site, security is a necessary feature every site must have. What good is a fast site if it’s hacked, even worse exposing your visitors to malicious content can have a permanent effect. Everything is in jeopardy – you’re business, your branding, your future. So what to do –

Solution – Install SSL

Keep in mind this a broad general overview, an entire book can be written on just SSL alone. Here I will provide a basic understanding – get our feet wet a bit. Continue reading “Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)”

If you’ve been programming in PHP for a while or just programming for that matter then you may have founds ways to improve your code, you know – take it to another level.

All credit goes to Reval Govender for this post, check out the video here – SOLID Principles

Efficiency, Scalability, Maintainability, Extensible and loosely coupled code comes to mind when thinking about advancing your programming skills. Enter SOLID Principles, don’t worry – there will only be 5 of them to keep in mind. You’ll be okay.

The Five SOLID Principles

1. S – Single Responsibility
2. O – Open/Close
3. L – Liskov Subtitution
4. I – Interface Segration
5. D – Dependency Inversion

Continue reading “SOLID Principles”

I was recently introduced to a Git methodology called Git Flow. Git Flow itself is more of a guideline that they are rules. Vincent Driessen coined the term, however much like myself, developers were probably already implementing this approach long before it gained popularity, or some variant of it. I do remember working on a small team in a past life, long ago when I was a young and chipper programmer. I do remember collaborating with my dev team and using a flavor of GitFlow. Looking back, I now see it’s power in both and even really large development teams. I must admit though, s’been a long time since I’ve worked on a team, so this will be an interesting run for me. Continue reading “Git using GitFlow”

One of the more advanced topics in Javascript is the distinction between the Object.create() and the new operator when constructing new objects. More than that, Javascript being a client side language – is unlike other server side languages, compiled or interpreted.

As a result Javascript has some weird parts to it putting off some developers to some other more less dynamics languages but drawing in more curious developers to Javascript land. These weird parts shouldn’t be seen as a disadvantage though if you thoroughly spend quality time getting to know Javascript – you can use these new patterns, concepts to your advantage.
Continue reading “Object.create vs the new operator in Javascript”

If you’re an SEO marketeer or a developer – you will see this a lot.

From Google Page Insights, Pingdom, SEM Rush, GTMetrix and other page speed tools – “Leverage Browser Caching” is bound to come up. If you’re ignoring this, then you’re business, your client, or site is at a major loss. Page speed is a huge variable when a customer first engages with your site – chances are high rate of drop offs will occur if you don’t leverage browser caching.
Continue reading “Leverage Browser Caching with .htaccess”

GZIP is one of those big words used in programming to generally describe compression. Then again, you end up asking what “compression” is in the context of programming and computers. These two terms can be a little intimidating to the noob and not until you’ve really implemented it, or experienced it first hand you won’t really know it’s true nature and the fundamental idea behind it. So let’s do that.

We often see these two terms come up frequently during page speed optimizations. Software tools like GTMetrix and Page Speed Insights. If you’re running into page speed issues or a really slow loading page, these tools will recommend compressing your files. Alright so what does that mean?

Alright, a lot actually. But in simple terms:

Compression is the process of encoding information using fewer bits. — Ilya Grigorik, Google

Continue reading “An intro to GZIP and compression”

I haven’t covered any advanced topics until now – functional programming in Javascript is an advanced topic in my book. Not only is functional programming an advanced topic, it’s quite special and specific to the Javascript language. Even a well seasoned developer could get a little frazzled by the concept of functional programming – especially those who code in more statically typed languages – like C or Java.

I, myself have mulled over this a long time – especially because I haven’t built any applications using much of functional programming. Frameworks and libraries – yes, but I’m talking about writing my own proprietary code. Programmers unknowingly utilize functional programming all the time – with this, comes closures, prototypical inheritance – other advanced patterns found in our javascript libraries today.
Continue reading “Javascript – Functional Programming Part 1”