Author: Josh Sherman
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Linode SSD vs. DigitalOcean
Time for another installment of my Linode vs. DigitalOcean series. The most notable improvement this go around is on Linode’s end by offering SSD Linux servers exclusively. This had been the pain point for many as DigitalOcean has been offering this since day one and Chris Aker had made it…
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How to Setup a LAMP Stack on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
The newest long term support release of Ubuntu (Trusty Tahr) is finally here! I just spun up a droplet over on DigitalOcean to walk through setting up a LAMP stack for this post. I also recommend making sure that your system is completely up to date. At the time of…
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The pros and cons of being accessible to your users
How accessible I am to my site’s users is something that I’ve went back and forth with over the last few years. When I say “accessible” I don’t mean venturing into offline interactions or anything like that, just in regard to how I interact with the users. I tend to…
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Compressing and uncompressing a string with PHP
Today I went on a mission to find a PHP function that I’ve never used before and knew nothing about. The mission was such a success that I have two functions to discuss and honestly, I’m pretty sure I’ll never use them. That being said, if the need ever arises…
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Reducing Redis used memory by moving back to MySQL
If you know me then you know I fucking adore Redis. Over the last few years it’s slowly worked it’s way into the majority of the things I have built. Unfortunately, recently I ran into a problem that Redis could easily accomplish but would require more RAM than I have…
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PHP’s /e modifier is deprecated, use preg_replace_callback instead
I’ve discussed the use of preg_replace_callback in the past in regard to passing variables to anonymous functions but never touched on how to use preg_replace_callback or the fact that the /e modifier has been deprecated in PHP 5.5+. Even though /e still works in PHP 5.5 in the near future…
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Migrating from WP Engine to GitHub Pages
After giving it nearly a full calendar year, I have decided to migrate my PHP blog (PHP Avenue) off of WordPress via WP Engine and on to GitHub Pages. The decision ultimately boiled down to WordPress having way more available functionality than I was actually using and me not seeing…
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Transactions with PHP Data Objects (PDO)
PHP Data Objects (PDO) is arguably the best database abstraction layer available in PHP. It provides a consistent interface across multiple datasources (MySQL, PostgreSQL, et cetera) and helps boost your site’s security by way of prepared statements. It even supports transactions which we’ll be taking a look at here. Database…
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The dirtiest thing you wear
Not only is it the dirtiest thing you wear, it’s quite possibly the dirtiest thing you own and it’s fucking disgusting. What is it, you ask? It’s your belt, your dirty disgusting belt. Why is your belt so disgusting? Because it’s something that you don’t launder. Not only do I…
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How to zero fill a number with PHP
Zero filling (or zero padding) is when you pad a value on the left side to a specific length. This is something you will commonly see in database schemas for integer columns. But what if we’re not working with data that’s already zero filled by a database? All we have…