Archives For Web Development

When I compose a newsletter, I look at my well of possible materials–questions, links, blog posts, etc., and try to come up with a theme, if at all possible. When looking at these this time around, the ones that seemed most worth sharing immediately all focus on, well, me. For example, there’s the presentation I gave to Boston PHP: you can view the slides and the raw video of it. Or there are some articles that I’ve published online that you might like. And there’s the status on “The Yii Book”.

So this newsletter is far more me-centric than most, but hopefully it’ll be of use to you still. Because, presumably, you subscribed to this newsletter in the first place because you were interested in what I’m doing, thinking, interested in, and so forth.

Also, if you do have something you’d like me to write about, address, or answer in future newsletters, now is a good time to send that in, as my well of topics is getting shallow. I think my next newsletter is going to be on goals, if you have any thoughts or questions along those lines (e.g., technologies to learn, ways to learn, etc.). I’ve also got an upcoming newsletter planned on public speaking.

And, as always, thanks for your interest in what I have to say and do!

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Screenqueri.es is a relatively new site, currently in beta, for testing how a Web site will look on various mobile devices. It’s an absolute snap to use: just enter the URL of your (or any) site, and Screenqueri.es will load a preview of that site, on a grid of pixels, as it would be loaded by a mobile device.

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This entry is part 6 of 8 in the series Processing Payments with Stripe

In an earlier post in this series, I covered how you create an HTML form for securely handling payments via Stripe. In the previous post, I walked through the JavaScript that goes with that form. As explained in that post, thanks to the Stripe.js library, the proper HTML, and a bit of JavaScript, you can easily and securely handle payments on your site without getting mired in the PCI compliance muck. The secret is the Stripe.js library: it sends the customer’s payment information from the client to Stripe’s server and returns a token that Stripe associated with that payment information. Then, when the form is submitted, the token can be used by the PHP on your site to actually process the payment. The customer’s payment information, however, never touches your server. You get paid and the customer is protected.

In this post, I’ll walk through the necessary PHP code that actually processes the payment request. Note that this article assumes that you have read the previous articles and are comfortable with PHP.

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So it’s 2013! I thought an update on “The Yii Book” would be a good way to start off the year. As you may know, I am behind schedule on the book, but this is apparently how I write books (i.e., always behind schedule). Not that it makes it right. Anyway…

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Looking Back on 2012

December 31, 2012

I started off 2012 with my non-resolutions list, so it only seems fitting that I end by looking back on my year (with respect to work). 2012 was a very interesting year for me, with many developments that I expect will continue paying off in 2013. Financially, 2012 was better than 2011, although it was not my highest grossing year by any means. But the amount of money you make is only one measure of success.

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