DerekAllard.com http://www.derekallard.com/ CodeIgniter, PHP, and the world of web design en derek@derekallard.com Copyright 2009 2009-06-09T11:21:18+00:00 I’m speaking at the first ExpressionEngine & CodeIgniter Conference http://derekallard.com/blog/post/im-speaking-at-the-first-expressionengine-codeigniter-conference/ http://derekallard.com/blog/post/im-speaking-at-the-first-expressionengine-codeigniter-conference/ I’m very pleased to announce I’ll be joining Leslie Camacho, Simon Collison, Veerle Pieters and a host of other brilliant minds at the the first ExpressionEngine & CodeIgniter Conference in Leiden (Netherlands) at the end of October.

2009 ExpressionEngine & CodeIgniter Conference

What doubly excites me about the entire conference (well… aside from the whole European vacation thing) is that they are specifically focusing on both of my favourite tools, not only EE or only CI, but both. The topics are balanced, the conference is very well organized so far… this will be a pleasure.

If you don’t already have plans, why not take a few extra days and make a vacation of it; and join us for several days of nerding out.

]]> codeigniter, expressionengine 2009-06-09T12:21:18+00:00 DOMPDF moved to Google Code, New dev team http://derekallard.com/blog/post/dompdf-moved-to-google-code-new-dev-team/ http://derekallard.com/blog/post/dompdf-moved-to-google-code-new-dev-team/ When I was building BambooInvoice, I wanted to have the ability to export invoices as PDFs. There are a number of excellent PHP based solutions for this, but Bamboo was unique in that it was a distributed application. I wouldn’t have control over the servers it was being installed onto. This meant I needed a PDF conversion library that didn’t rely on certain server libraries being present. I was also limited in that I wanted BambooInvoice to be released under an Open Source license.

DOMPDF was perfect for what I needed, and today the project changed hands, and is once again being actively developed at http://code.google.com/p/dompdf/. I’m very excited for the future of this excellent project.

Read the full post for details.

]]> bambooinvoice, php 2009-05-07T14:20:43+00:00 BambooInvoice 0.8.9 Released http://derekallard.com/blog/post/bambooinvoice-0.8.9-released/ http://derekallard.com/blog/post/bambooinvoice-0.8.9-released/ I’m proud to release BambooInvoice 0.8.9 today. Its mostly a maintenance release, but there are some tasty new features as always.

]]> bambooinvoice 2009-04-15T13:48:45+00:00 EllisLab Business Card http://derekallard.com/blog/post/ellislab-business-card/ http://derekallard.com/blog/post/ellislab-business-card/ Hot on the trail of my last post (”Coolest business card I’ve ever seen”) Lookie what arrived in the mail today.

EllisLab Business Card

I have to admit, I love them. I think its the perfect mix of playful and professional, and really captures the spirit of ExpressionEngine. The text is a little hard to read, but on the back it reads:

{exp:robots orders=“kill all humans”}
    http://derekallard.com
    @dallard
{/exp:robots}

If you’re an EE user, you’ll recognize the {exp} syntax right away, and of course the other bits are my website (d’uh) and my Twitter. I’m thinking about writing in an {exp:robots} easter egg now, just for people who get my card! (yeah, ok, I won’t, but let’s just say that robots may make an appearance in EE2).

]]> noteworthy 2009-03-02T20:50:43+00:00 Quick Link: Coolest business card I’ve ever seen http://derekallard.com/blog/post/quick-link-coolest-business-card-ive-ever-seen/ http://derekallard.com/blog/post/quick-link-coolest-business-card-ive-ever-seen/ Found via the watchmaker project, I present the coolest business card I’ve ever seen!

Cool Lego Business Card
(Larger Version)
]]> noteworthy, quick-links 2009-02-26T15:23:56+00:00 Those little apps I just can’t live without http://derekallard.com/blog/post/those-little-apps-i-just-cant-live-without/ http://derekallard.com/blog/post/those-little-apps-i-just-cant-live-without/ Recently Derek Jones shared a little addon for Textmate with me called ProjectPlus.  I love it, and now I wonder how I was getting along without it.  This isn’t the first time someone has shared a little utility or app with me that I’ve found indispensable.

So here’s my list of lesser known apps that I use on a regular basis.

]]> mac 2009-02-22T21:50:27+00:00 Rebuilding DerekAllard.com: The invasion has progressed http://derekallard.com/blog/post/rebuilding-derekallard.com-the-invasion-has-progressed/ http://derekallard.com/blog/post/rebuilding-derekallard.com-the-invasion-has-progressed/ Who doesn’t love cheesy killer robots? Nobody that’s who!

I’ve decided to give my blog a facelift. We’ve been living with the old design for a few years now, and those darn robots just weren’t making as much progress on the invasion as they thought they would - so I decided to help them along with a rebuild.  Here’s the before and after:

  • DerekAllard.com old design
  • DerekAllard.com new design

Keep reading to see drafts of the robots as they evolved, and a peak into the process of the rebuild.

]]> noteworthy 2009-02-05T14:13:01+00:00 Getting the value of a selected radio button out of a radio group in jQuery http://derekallard.com/blog/post/getting-the-value-of-a-selected-radio-button-out-of-a-radio-group-in-jquery/ http://derekallard.com/blog/post/getting-the-value-of-a-selected-radio-button-out-of-a-radio-group-in-jquery/ Just a quick tip, I needed to get the value of the selected radio button from a radio group using jQuery. While several custom selectors are available for forms, there isn’t a simple way to do it that I could find. I ended up using a solution that I quite like, and wanted to share.

$("input[name=radio_group]:checked").val(); 

Have I mentioned that I love jQuery?

Edit: This entry was directly attacked by the robots, and all comments were lost. Please leave one again if you left it earlier, and accept my sincerest of apologies.

 

]]> how-to, javascript 2009-01-29T21:22:06+00:00 All your DerekAllard.com are belong to us http://derekallard.com/blog/post/all-your-derekallard.com-are-belong-to-us/ http://derekallard.com/blog/post/all-your-derekallard.com-are-belong-to-us/ They’re coming…
Conquering the worlds of web design

]]> noteworthy, personal 2009-01-08T09:19:47+00:00 BambooInvoice 0.88 is out, and has 2 very popular features http://derekallard.com/blog/post/bambooinvoice-0.88-is-out-and-has-2-very-popular-features/ http://derekallard.com/blog/post/bambooinvoice-0.88-is-out-and-has-2-very-popular-features/ I’m proud to announce that BambooInvoice 0.88 is ready and all wrapped up!  The changelog is pretty substantial, and in fact the underlying code has undergone some pretty big overhauls.  A few highlights include: enabling of email functionality when invoice is closed; invoices now detail amount paid and owing if an invoice has partial payments applied to it; a “tax code” field has been added to client information (particularly useful for countries that require printing a client’s taxcode by law); a hidden config variable has been added to allow the separator between dollars and cents to be a non ‘.’ if wanted (for example $24,67) and; the whole system is now subclassed under a new controller for login and other tasks.

Most of that stuff won’t mean much to most users.  The “big” changes for this version are the inclusion of 2 oft-requested features.

  1. The ability to duplicate invoices
  2. Multiple Admin accounts

Keep reading for more details, including how these work, and previews of each in action.

]]> bambooinvoice 2008-12-22T17:13:13+00:00