I recently installed Xampp on my mac to help with some other development work, only to find that my previous install of MySQL which I was using for Ruby on Rails development no longer worked. I was receiving errors:

ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/tmp/mysql.sock’

and

No such file or directory - /tmp/mysql.sock

To fix the problem, I added the following line to config/database.yml

socket: /Applications/xampp/xamppfiles/var/mysql/mysql.sock

Huge thanks to http://soledadpenades.com/ who had the solution.

MaxiGallery is a customizable image gallery for the PHP application framework/CMS MODx. I have been testing it out locally on a windows based PC running Apache, and came across an error when trying to upload files as per the Picture and Thumbnails walkthrough. [Read the full post…]

This is pretty basic stuff, but I couldn’t easily find the details on how to do it, so here it is for anyone else who is looking for it.

Scenario: I wanted to put the current date and time as the default text for the date field in a form.

The code:

In the form I used:

<p> Date: <br /> <%= f.text_field :date, :value => @current_time %> </p>

And in the controller for the view put:

@current_time = Time.now.strftime(”%Y-%m-%d %H:%M”)

Formatting:

You can change the formatting of the date/time displayed, but I am using this for now as this way it puts it straight into MySQL without me having to rework it.

Additional info:

Refer to: http://au2.php.net/strftime for details on formatting dates using strftime

Well it’s official. I am now a small business owner. Well technically I have owned the business name and been planning for the last 9 months, but I have just finished launching the website for my new business venture, Mojito Solutions, so now it seems official.

So how did it all start?

I have wanted to establish my own business for as long as I can remember. About 7 years ago, I was working in the retail industry and inspired by the thought of being able to obtain clothes at cost prices, thought it would be great to start my own fashion store. Three years later, I was halfway through studying business and information technology at Uni, when it occurred to me that the fashion industry wasn’t really for me, and that my real passion revolved around technology and computers. Towards the end of my degree, lured by the attractiveness and variety of websites and web applications, I decided to make the switch from desktop applications to the web industry.
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Anyone who is a regular visitor to this site will have noticed a sudden brightness to the links in particular. For anyone who knows me, pink is not my colour of choice so it should be obvious something is up.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and in a small effort to help make a difference I am helping to promote Breast Cancer Awareness by going pink. Also all funds raised via my Google AdWords will be donated to the National Breast Cancer Foundation here in Australia who are raising money to try and find a cure for breast cancer.

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I have just gotten back from a jam packed weekend of presentations and drinking in Sydney at the annual Oz-IA conference. Information Architecture is a relatively new industry, however there was a good turn out with people not only coming from Sydney, but also Canberra, Perth, London, New York, New Zealand, and even Canada with about 120 attendees in total.

There isn’t much of a web development industry in Townsville and even less of a community for information architecture specialists, so it was really good to get out and meet people with the same interests.

One of the key presentations that got everyone talking was Rashmi Sinha from SlideShare who talked about ten things that they learned by using agile design methods when developing SlideShare. Information Architecture usually requires a lot of research, planning and testing, however they took an entirely different approach and it appears to have worked well for them. I hadn’t previously heard of SlideShare, but put simply, they are an online sharing site for slideshow presentations. People can upload their PowerPoint presentations which can then be tagged and shared easily through the online medium.
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James Archer CEO of Forty Media talked at SXSW07 about his tips on issues affecting web professionals. Here are my notes on the key topics he discussed. You can download the full podcast @ http://2007.sxsw.com/blogs/podcasts.php/2007/06/

1. Limit your services
2. Find a role model
3. Don’t be flaky to your clients (stay dedicated, and follow through)
4. Document your success
“the hard part is growing your business and making other people understand what is good about your business.”
5. Don’t trust your own brain – write things down or you’ll forget
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If you haven’t heard of the IT Crowd it is a British sitcom which is absolutely hilarious. If you have a bit of technical background you will probably find it more entertaining then the standard viewer, however there is always something that everyone will get a laugh from. [view the full post…]