Posts Tagged ‘rss’
WordPress 3.0.1
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
After nearly 11 million downloads of WordPress 3.0 in just 42 days, we’re releasing WordPress 3.0.1. The requisite haiku:
Three dot oh dot one
Bug fixes to make you smile
Update your WordPress
This maintenance release addresses about 50 minor issues. The testing many of you contributed prior to the release of 3.0 helped make it one of the best and most stable releases we’ve had.
Download 3.0.1 or update automatically from the Dashboard > Updates menu in your site’s admin area.
Note: If you downloaded 3.0.1 in the first 20 minutes of release (before 2200 UTC), you’ll want to reinstall it, which you can do right from your Updates screen. Our bad.
rss
Uncategorized | No Comments »
WPE Arcade Script
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
WPE Arcade Script is a free PHP script with many nice features and an easy to use use install process. rss
Free PHP Scripts | No Comments »
TreeView
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
It can generate HTML and Javascript to display a nested tree of folder that may contain entries with link to given URLs.
classes, rss
Classes | No Comments »
Lightweight MVC
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
It provides based model, view and controller class that should be derived to implement new applications.
classes, rss
Classes | No Comments »
Incredible Services and Products
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
Okay, okay; this may be a thank you posting for the wonderful sponsors of our massive HTML5 competition, however, it’s important for me to note that I refused to accept sponsors of any product that I didn’t honestly feel was fantastic. What this means is that, as the editor of Nettuts+, I fully endorse each and every one of the following services and products, and, in fact, use many of them on a daily basis! That’s why I asked these companies to sponsor the competition!
1. TechSmith
TechSmith has been extremely generous to Envato in the last few years. Luckily, that has no effect on the fact that the products they provide — everything from Camtasia Studio to Jing Pro, are amazing.
Did you know that I personally use their products every single day? When you watch screencasts from Nettuts+, they were recorded with Camtasia Studio for Mac. When I send out quickie videos and images, I use Jing Pro to distribute them on Twitter. Not only that, but they’re constantly updating their products, and support both Windows and Mac.
“We’ve stayed on top of the screen capture and recording game since the launch of Snagit nearly 20-years-ago.”
2. Media Temple
In addition to being my personal web host of choice, Media Temple is hugely respected around the web as being one of the premier web hosts. Whether hosting jQuery, or Starbucks, or even Django’s site, MediaTemple can handle the load! They come highly recommended.
“Media Temple hosts websites. Big and Small. For years we’ve taken complex technology and simplified it for the everyday website owner. Our products are designed to be powerful, affordable and relevant. Please take a look around; perhaps (mt) is a good choice for your next project.”
3. FormStack
Do we recommend FormStack? Well consider this; the submission form to enter the HTML5 competition…was created with FormStack. Their service is incredibly simple to use.
“Formstack’s easy form builder gives businesses and organizations an easy way to build any type of online form, integrate it with their website and begin collecting data. ”
4. Wufoo
At Envato, we use Wufoo as well. If you haven’t heard Chris, from CSS-Tricks praise Wufoo enough, let us assure you that their service comes with the highest recommendation from Nettuts+. I even use them on my own personal sites!
“What is Wufoo? Wufoo strives to be the easiest way to collect information over the Internet. Our HTML form builder helps you create contact forms, online surveys, and invitations so you can collect the data, registrations and online payments you need without writing a single line of code.
5. FusionCharts
FusionCharts has long been regarded as the premier solution for rendering animated graphs and charts for your business. Just browse through their various demos if you don’t believe me!
“FusionCharts v3 helps you create animated and interactive Flash charts for web and desktop applications. It livens up your applications by converting monotonous data into exciting visuals. “
6. Pagelime
We’ve published PageLime tutorials a couple of times on Nettuts+ recently. The huge advantage with their service is that zero coding is required on your part. This makes it significantly appealing to non-tech savvy folks. Most recently, they’ve launched a reseller program, as well as a new navigation manager.
“Pagelime is a brandable CMS that lets your clients manage their content. No installation, no coding to integrate, and no wasted time. Just add the cms-editable CSS class to any HTML element on your site and Pagelime does the rest.”
7. Campaign Monitor
There’s a reason why Facebook, Ebay, and Twitter utilize Campaign Monitor’s services: they’re the best! In fact, their email CSS guide has been proven to be a bible for me, when creating designs optimized for email. They even contributed a tutorial to Nettuts+ not too long ago on the state of CSS3 in email designs.
Send beautiful email campaigns, track the results, and manage your subscribers.”
8. Snippets
If you’ve watched my tutorials, you might have noticed a little scissors icon in my menu bar. That’s for Snippets. It’s an incredible code snippet management tool for Mac, that I use on a daily basis. Even better, it has support for Snipplr uploading — which Envato recently purchased!
“Snippets is a powerful application for Mac OS X that stores the most valuable pieces of code you can reuse in different projects many times.”
9. Querious
In need of a kick-ass MySQL database management app for Mac? I was, and Querious proved to be the best tool for the job. I use it often in my SQL-based video tutorials.
“Querious is a MySQL database management application written from the ground up for Mac OS X. Unlike mindless Mac OS X ports of applications originally made for Windows or Linux, Querious works the way you’d naturally expect it to as a Mac OS X app.”
10. Miva Merchant
Miva Merchant has been around for a long time, and is one of the top providers of e-commerce solutions on the web.
Miva Merchant is a leading supplier of e-commerce software and services to small and medium-sized businesses. We provide online merchants, developers, web designers and web hosts with the information and technology needed to be successful in today’s online selling environment.
11. Rockable Press
Envato’s publishing branch, Rockable Press, is in full force these days — especially with the release of our CEO’s newest book, “How to Build a Successful Blog Business,” which I’m currently reading through. To be objective…it’s fantastic.
“At Rockable Press, we produce simple, straight forward how-to guides and resources for web and creative professionals. We are a small web publishing outfit operated by Envato with authors based around the world. ”
12. jQuery Enlightenment
To this day, jQuery Enlightement holds the spot as my most recommended book on jQuery. Written by Cody Lindley, the book is succinct, and cuts out all of the fluff. As a result, you learn everything you need to know…as quickly as possible. Not only that, but he utilizes JSBin to provide clickable code examples for all of the demos. This has proven to be an extremely smart decision on his part, and you’ll surely see others adopting this same method in the future.
“jQuery Enlightenment was written to express, in short-order, the concepts essential to intermediate and advanced jQuery development. Its purpose is to instill in you, the reader, practices that jQuery developers take as common knowledge. Each chapter contains concepts essential to becoming a seasoned jQuery developer.”
13. WP Structure Theme
Chris Robinson is far and away one of the best authors on ThemeForest, and this theme is a perfect example of his talents.
“Months in development WP Structure is a highly flexible and heavily optioned premium theme, to be used for almost anything business, portfolio, blog, magazine & more!”
learn, php, rss, tutorials
PHP Tutorials | No Comments »
CSS: Noob to Ninja – The Complete Video Series
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
This exclusive premium video series will take you from a state of absolute CSS “noobness,” all the way up to ninja-status, capable of taking advantage of the latest CSS3 techniques. The series begins with the basics: the syntax, properties, etc. However, each new video expands upon the previous, as you work your way up and improve your skills. In this final week, you’ll complete the series, as you gain access to Parts 8-12: five new episodes.
In these final video tutorials, you’ll learn about a variety of CSS3 techniques, how to use custom fonts, working with CSS frameworks, and how to extend CSS with applications like LESS. Don’t fall behind! Become a Premium member!
The Full Screencast Series: Exclusive to Premium Members
- Part 1: Preparation
- Part 2: CSS Properties
- Part 3: Typography
- Part 4: Floats
- Part 5: Positioning
- Part 6: Semantics, List Items, and Menus
- Part 7: CSS Organizational Techniques
- Part 8: Rounded Corners, Box Shadows, and Text Shadows
- Part 9: CSS3 Gradients
- Part 10: Custom Fonts with @font-face
- Part 11: Taking Advantage of CSS Frameworks
- Part 12: Extending CSS with LESS
Join Net Premium
For those unfamiliar, the family of TUTS sites runs a premium membership service. For $9 per month, you gain access to exclusive premium tutorials, screencasts, and freebies from Nettuts+, Psdtuts+, Aetuts+, Audiotuts+, and Vectortuts+! For the price of a pizza, you’ll learn from some of the best minds in the business. Become a Premium member!
learn, php, rss, tutorials
PHP Tutorials | No Comments »
Start Using HTML5 WebSockets Today
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
One of the cool new features of HTML5 is WebSockets, which let us talk to the server without using AJAX requests. In this tutorial, we’ll review the process of running a WebSocket server in PHP, and then building a client to send and receive messages to it over the WebSocket protocol.
What are WebSockets?
WebSockets is a technique for two-way communication over one (TCP) socket, a type of PUSH technology. At the moment, it’s still being standardized by the W3C; however, the latest versions of Chrome and Safari have support for WebSockets.
What do WebSockets Replace?
Websockets can replace long-polling. This is an interesting concept; the client sends a request to the server – now, rather than the server responding with data it may not have, it essentially keeps the connection open until the fresh, up-to-date data is ready to be sent – the client next receives this, and sends another request. This has its benefits: decreased latency being one of them, as a connection which has already been opened does not require a new connection to be established. However, long-polling isn’t really a piece of fancy technology: it’s also possible for a request to time-out, and thus a new connection will be needed anyway.
Many Ajax applications makes use of the above – this can often be attributed to poor resource utilization.
Wouldn’t it be great if the server could wake up one morning and send its data to clients who are willing to listen without some sort of pre established connection? Welcome to the world of PUSH technology!
Step 1: Get the WebSocket Server
This tutorial will focus more on the client building rather than server implementation.
I’m using XAMPP on Windows 7 to run the PHP server locally. Grab a copy of phpwebsockets which is a WebSocket server in PHP. (Note: I experienced some problems with this version, I made some changes to it and will including it in the source files) There are various WebSocket implementations; if one doesn’t work, you can try another or just continue with the tutorial.
- jWebSocket (Java)
- web-socket-ruby (ruby)
- Socket IO-node (node.js)
Start the Apache server
Step 2: Change URLs and Ports
Change the server according to your setup, for example in setup.class.php:
public function __construct($host='localhost',$port=8000,$max=100)
{
$this->createSocket($host,$port);
}
Browse through the files and make changes where appropriate.
Step 3: Start Building the Client
Lets get a basic template up; this is my client.php file:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<title>WebSockets Client</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="container">
<h1>WebSockets Client</h1>
<div id="chatLog">
</div><!-- #chatLog -->
<p id="examples">e.g. try 'hi', 'name', 'age', 'today'</p>
<input id="text" type="text" />
<button id="disconnect">Disconnect</button>
</div><!-- #container -->
</div>
</body>
</html>
So in this code we’re creating a simple template: we have a box for the chat log, an input box, and one disconnect button.
Step 4: Add Some CSS
Nothing fancy, just space some elements out.
body {
font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}
#container{
border:5px solid grey;
width:800px;
margin:0 auto;
padding:10px;
}
#chatLog{
padding:5px;
border:1px solid black;
}
#chatLog p {
margin:0;
}
.event {
color:#999;
}
.warning{
font-weight:bold;
color:#CCC;
}
Step 5: WebSocket Events
First, let’s try and understand the idea of WebSocket events.
The Events
We’ll be using three events:
- onopen: When a socket has opened
- onmessage: When a message has been received
- onclose: When a socket has been closed
But how can we implement this?
First create a WebSocket object
var socket = new WebSocket("ws://localhost:8000/socket/server/startDaemon.php");
And checking for events is as simple as:
socket.onopen = function(){
alert("Socket has been opened!");
}
But what about when we receive a message?
socket.onmessage = function(msg){
alert(msg); //Awesome!
}
However, let’s avoid using alert boxes, and actually integrate what we’ve learned into the client page.
Step 6: JavaScript
Ok, so let’s get started. First we put our code in jQuery’s document ready function, then we check whether the user has a WebSockets-enabled browser. If they do not, we append a link to Chrome in the HTML.
$(document).ready(function() {
if(!("WebSocket" in window)){
$('#chatLog, input, button, #examples').fadeOut("fast");
$('<p>Oh no, you need a browser that supports WebSockets. How about <a href="http://www.google.com/chrome">Google Chrome</a>?</p>').appendTo('#container');
}else{
//The user has WebSockets
connect();
function connect(){
//the connect function code is below
}
});
As you can see, if the user has WebSockets then we call a connect() function. This is the core of the functionality: we’ll start with the open, close and receive events.
We’ll define the URL of our server
var socket; var host = "ws://localhost:8000/socket/server/startDaemon.php";
Wait, where’s the http in that URL? Oh right, it’s a WebSocket URL, so it’s using a different protocol. Here’s a breakdown of the pieces of our URL:
Let’s continue with our connect() function. We will put our code within a try/catch block; so if something goes wrong, we can let the user know. We create a new WebSocket, and pass the message to a message function which I’ll explain later. We create our onopen, onmessage and onclose functions. Note that we also show the user the socket status; this is not necessary, but I’m including it here as it can be helpful for debugging.
- CONNECTING = 0
- OPEN = 1
- CLOSED = 2
function connect(){
try{
var socket;
var host = "ws://localhost:8000/socket/server/startDaemon.php";
var socket = new WebSocket(host);
message('<p class="event">Socket Status: '+socket.readyState);
socket.onopen = function(){
message('<p class="event">Socket Status: '+socket.readyState+' (open)');
}
socket.onmessage = function(msg){
message('<p class="message">Received: '+msg.data);
}
socket.onclose = function(){
message('<p class="event">Socket Status: '+socket.readyState+' (Closed)');
}
} catch(exception){
message('<p>Error'+exception);
}
}
The message() function is fairly simple, it takes in some text that we want to show the user and appends it to the chatLog. We create the appropriate class for paragraph tags in the socket event functions which is why there is only one closing paragraph tag in the message function.
function message(msg){
$('#chatLog').append(msg+'</p>');
}
So Far…
If you’ve been following up to this point, well done! We’ve managed to create a basic HTML/CSS template, create and establish a WebSocket connection and keep the user updated as progress was made with the connection.
Step 7: Sending Data
Now rather than having a submit button, we can detect when the user presses return on their keyboard, and run the send function. The ’13′ you see below is the ASCII key for the enter button.
$('#text').keypress(function(event) {
if (event.keyCode == '13') {
send();
}
});
And here’s the send() function:
function send(){
var text = $('#text').val();
if(text==""){
message('<p class="warning">Please enter a message');
return ;
}
try{
socket.send(text);
message('<p class="event">Sent: '+text)
} catch(exception){
message('<p class="warning"> Error:' + exception);
}
$('#text').val("");
}
Remember what you see above may be a chunky bit of code, but in reality, the code we really need is:
socket.send(); //Thanks JavaScript
The extra code is doing a number of things: detecting if the user didn’t enter anything but still hit return, clearing the input box, and calling the message functions.
Step 8: Closing the Socket
Closing the socket is fairly straightforward: attach a click handler to our disconnect button and we’re done!
$('#disconnect').click(function(){
socket.close();
});
The Completed JavaScript
$(document).ready(function() {
if(!("WebSocket" in window)){
$('#chatLog, input, button, #examples').fadeOut("fast");
$('<p>Oh no, you need a browser that supports WebSockets. How about <a href="http://www.google.com/chrome">Google Chrome</a>?</p>').appendTo('#container');
}else{
//The user has WebSockets
connect();
function connect(){
var socket;
var host = "ws://localhost:8000/socket/server/startDaemon.php";
try{
var socket = new WebSocket(host);
message('<p class="event">Socket Status: '+socket.readyState);
socket.onopen = function(){
message('<p class="event">Socket Status: '+socket.readyState+' (open)');
}
socket.onmessage = function(msg){
message('<p class="message">Received: '+msg.data);
}
socket.onclose = function(){
message('<p class="event">Socket Status: '+socket.readyState+' (Closed)');
}
} catch(exception){
message('<p>Error'+exception);
}
function send(){
var text = $('#text').val();
if(text==""){
message('<p class="warning">Please enter a message');
return ;
}
try{
socket.send(text);
message('<p class="event">Sent: '+text)
} catch(exception){
message('<p class="warning">');
}
$('#text').val("");
}
function message(msg){
$('#chatLog').append(msg+'</p>');
}
$('#text').keypress(function(event) {
if (event.keyCode == '13') {
send();
}
});
$('#disconnect').click(function(){
socket.close();
});
}//End connect
}//End else
});
Step 9: Run the WebSocket Server
We will need command line access. Luckily, XAMPP has a handy shell option. Click ‘Shell’ on the XAMPP control panel, and type in:
php -q path\to\server.php
You have now started a WebSocket server!
Finished
When the page loads, a WebSocket connection will attempt to be established (try editing the code so the user has connect/disconnect option). Then, the user can enter messages and receive messages from the server.
That’s it!
Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Remember, as exciting as WebSockets may be, things may change. You can refer here to keep up to date on the W3C WebSocket API.
learn, php, rss, tutorials
PHP Tutorials | No Comments »
XML-RPC Client
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
It can send HTTP requests to a given XML-RPC server to call a function passing given parameters.
The class supports calling servers that require basic HTTP authentication.
classes, rss
Classes | No Comments »
My special calendar
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
It can generate HTML and JavaScript to display calendars for given months and years.
The class can display the current month day and any other special days in different way.
classes, rss
Classes | No Comments »
Behind the Scenes of Nettuts with Collis!
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
Here at Envato we’re pretty famous for building a lot of successful blogs, like this one! We’ve done quite a few now, so last year I decided other people might find our techniques and systems useful. Today I’m really happy to announce my new book How to Build a Successful Blog Business which is a step by step guide to doing what we do, and it comes packed with case studies for our blogs including Nettuts!
The book covers everything from picking a niche to hiring staff, monetizing to building traffic. Like all my books it’s very practical, but I think the best part is the case studies because they include things like our income and expense graphs, detailed backstories about how our sites came to be, and much more. To give you a taste of what the book is like, I thought you might like to read a little part of the case study about Tuts:
Extract The Tuts Case Study
… Nine months after launching Psdtuts+, it was time to expand out the clearly successful formula to other types of tutorials. Beginning with web development and Nettuts+, we launched over the course of two years a total of seven more sites. Each one applies the same overall editorial concept into a different niche, with a different editor and different writers.
The plus side of this is that the Tuts+ franchise as a whole has now grown far beyond just Photoshop tutorials. The down side is that whenever our revenue looked like it was going to pass costs, we would launch a new site driving our costs up again.
To manage a suite of blogs also introduces an additional layer of complexity as you now need a business capable of:
- Managing a team of editors each with a team of writers
- Hiring, training and occasionally replacing editors
- Handling hundreds of invoices from writers and freelance staff every month
- Managing servers, installations and themes
These requirements meant we brought on first a Tuts+ manager by the name of Skellie, who was a former editor of FreelanceSwitch. Then secondly, we hired a WordPress developer named Derek Herman who took over building and managing the themes on all the blogs. Thirdly we hired a freelance and later a full-time PHP developer to manage the servers, optimize performance and handle emergencies.
Because Tuts+ is run as part of a larger startup, we have had the benefit of piggy-backing accounting, management and legal costs from our parent business Envato. For an independent blog business however these are significant costs not to be discounted.
Increasing Costs
As the network grew it also became apparent that we needed to pay our writers and contributors more. While the base submission payment is still $150, the payments for regular writers and special one-off contributors has increased so that we now pay a range of $200 – $800 per tutorial depending on the experience and fame of the author and the depth, length and quality of the content.
Similarly the additional burden of managing the growing enterprise also led to greater and greater costs as we hired more staff, more management overhead and of course the ever present hosting costs.
In fact by late 2009 our monthly bandwidth had passed 40 Terrabytes of data a month leading to hosting costs in the many thousands of dollars…
Extracted from How to Build a Successful Blog Business, by Collis Ta’eed
Read More Extracts
You can read more extracts from the other case studies over on FreelanceSwitch, Psdtuts+ and Mac.AppStorm (the other sites covered in the case studies). You can also read a sample chapter by heading to our sales page for the book.
Get the Book!
You can learn more about the book, as well as find out what top100 bloggers like Darren Rowse from Problogger and Daniel Scocco from DailyBlogTips are saying about it over on the epic sales page that we’ve constructed! Get Blog Business!
Also Envato Birthday Bundle 2010!
And while I’m here with news about my book, I thought I’d also mention that next month we’re running our annual Envato Birthday Bundle for 2010 and it’s going to be EVEN bigger than last year with over $400 of value selling for just $20! Find Out about Envato Birthday Bundle 2010.
So watch out, it’s going to be a big August!