Creative Bytes Blog

I’ve just managed to get my network repaired on my home server that I’ve been running for a little while now. For some reason, Ubuntu decided to not load the module required for the ethernet card :/ I’ve outlined the steps I took to get it working (there were some others, but this was the route that actually worked for me), mainly to help others who encounter the same situation; but also for my own use next time it happens Read more…

So, after a little bit of a hiatus, I’m back. Been having a few issues with my hosting provider – turns out that when my hosting account was moved from the Kate server across to the Ilana server, my account somehow was lost.

A Small Orange were super-cool about it, and fixed everything within 2 hours of my having submitted a help ticket. I’d still recommend ASO — they really are awesome, and really “fiscally viable” (read: cheap).

Anyways, this was just a quick update to let you know that I’m back. I’m compiling a list of blog topics that I could post about (thanks for the idea, Tiaan), and when I get a moment to blog, I’ll share them with you

I’m off to go watch the Springboks beat the All Blacks in the first Tri-Nations match, so hope you’re watching the match. ‘Til next time…

So, I was finishing up some of the final bugs on the Computicket website last night with one of the other developers in the office, Deon. One of the tweaks we needed to implement was the minifying of all the common JavaScript files on the website. Brilliant idea! We’ll just name the JavaScript file whatever the current timestamp is – that should get around the caching issues with browsers caching the files with the same filename.

Read more…

So, I’ve decided to migrate back from using my laptop at work, to using the desktop that was initially provided for me. The only difference is that I’ve now partitioned my hard-drive, and I’m running Linux alongside Windows. I figured that, considering I’m developing in PHP, I may as well use Linux, which what most servers running PHP use.

I made the jump to using Linux a little while ago on my laptop, and the distro I choose to move to was Ubuntu. I’ve only been using it properly for about four months, so by all accounts, I’m still a relative n00b when it comes to Linux. Read more…

After having worked on a particularly annoying problem involving the CakePHP custom prefix routing, I feel like I might have found a slight bug in the reverse routing (specifically, in a URL generated when calling Router::url()). Read more…

Okay, so every blog has to have one of these. A first post. And as is customary for a development blog, what better title that “Hello, world!” — every new developer’s introductory text.

Well, after many months and/or years of always saying “I really should set up my blog,” I have finally done it. Of course, it’s still very much in it’s infancy stages, and you’re going to need to look out for a number of improvements that will be coming your way.

Let me outline some of these changes (Bear with me here. By putting these down, I’m hoping to actually get to them within the next few months):

1. Overhaul the Creative Bytes website, and make it more like a portfolio that I can be really proud of.
2. Update this blog to tie in with the website’s colour schemes and layout.
3. Get Employometer up and running (Making great progress with this, by the way. It’s taught me so much about CakePHP).

And so, let me introduce myself (that is, if you don’t already know me). My name is Geoffrey Garbers, and I’m a PHP developer living and working in Cape Town, South Africa. Contrary to popular belief, we do have internet connectivity, and we don’t have elephants and lions roaming the streets (although, most of you are probably intelligent to know this).

My specializations lie in developing web and mobile sites, which I do whilst working at Prezence New Media. I can program in PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, X/HTML (not really programming languages, I know), and CSS. You could also throw in a smigdin of ASP.NET.

I primarily use CakePHP as my framework of choice when developing. I’ve since moved on from CodeIgniter, which although it is a super awesome framework to use to learn the basics of the MVC design pattern, lacks the power that CakePHP offers.

So, now that you know me a bit better, how about you let me know some more about you? Hit me up in the comments – let me know who you are, what your website URL is, what your favourite colour is, and where you like to hang out (Just kidding about the last two — unless you really want to tell me).

Hey, and you can catch me on Twitter too: @garbetjie