// Encrypt the password with Blowfish and a salt - 16 chars starting with $2$
$salt='$2$';
$salt_length=16;

// Chars to choose from to generate the salt
$chars="ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890!@#$%^&*";

//Generate the salt string
while(strlen($salt)< $salt_length)
	$salt.=$chars{mt_rand(0,strlen($chars)-1)};

$hashed_password=crypt($password, $salt);

Fortunately for me, it’s relatively easy to edit key mappings in OS X, which means that the functionality I’m used to has mostly returned. For the mouse issue, I had to install a Microsoft mouse driver, which conflicted with the mouse control panel option for a while.

On a somewhat related note, have I mentioned that the Mighty Mouse is horrible? It doesn’t fit my hand at all, has a worthless “scroll wheel” nubbin, and flaky left/right-click support. Sadly, back when I was working at my old job, I had thought about buying one, even going so far as to make some low bids on eBay. I think this piece o’ junk is going up there for some other sod. I do like the Mac keyboard, though (not the new, shallow version). The keys, while not clicky, have an appropriate amount of tactile feedback. The keyboard itself is much narrower than my Model M IBM keyboard, though, which took a bit of time to get used to as well.

All in all, I’m pretty happy about my purchase… a little bit bitter about getting the shaft in terms of RAM and HD space (1 GB/250 GB in a machine of this class? Ridiculous! Plus no Bluetooth or WiFi=superlame), but prices for that stuff will keep going down. I’m glad to be using a more versatile machine, albeit one that’s a massive investment.

Another thing I just wanted to mention for my own reference was short conditionals in PHP. Example:

<?
	if(empty($_GET['id']))
		echo 'No ID';
	else
		echo 'ID: '.$_GET['id'];
?>

Can be replaced with:

<?=empty($_GET['id'])?'No ID':'ID: '.$_GET['id']?>

The syntax can be broken down into CONDITIONAL ? IF TRUE : IF FALSE

It’s basically just a way to make your code concise and look esoteric while doing so.

I cursed under my breath, and then looked at the pages he sent back to me. All he had done was add an XHTML doctype to each page. Running them through a validator produced millions of errors. That’s when I decided to read a bit on what XHTML actually does.

Benefits of XHTML

1. Stricter syntax rules – always have well-formed documents

Detriments of XHTML

1. Stricter syntax rules – more difficult to update
2. Needs to be served with proper MIME type; not “text/html”
   1. View http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml regarding serving XHTML as “text/html”
3. Not supported by IE
   1. XML declaration causes “quirks” mode when document is served as “text/html”
   2. IE doesn’t handle MIME type “application/xhtml+xml”
   3. “Unless the document is recognised as XHTML, you cannot use any of the features XHTML offers over HTML.”

Sadly, after reading about all this stuff, I realized that I had been making some unwitting mistakes in my HTML for quite a while now, such as inserting a space and slash at the end of single tags (i.e. <br /> instead of <br>). Plus, I haven’t been validating my code… mostly just due to laziness on my part.

Anyway, the long and short of the story is that I learned a lot about doctype declarations, and that XHTML is mostly hype, in terms of accessibility and features. Using the HTML 4.01 Strict doctype will probably ensure that your document will be accessible in its’ original presentation for years to come (if you even care that long).

The big thing, though, is that there’s a gap in Apple’s product lineup: a huge gap between the Mac Mini and Mac Pro. I need two monitors for development work (which nixes the Mini), but don’t need the two dual-core CPUs that drive the price up on the Mac Pro. Some dude wrote an article about the issue, which I endorse wholeheartedly. When I went into the local Apple store for a “hiring event,” I was the only person who didn’t own a Mac — I cited the fact that Apple didn’t offer what I needed from a professional standpoint, but it didn’t go over well with the zealots at the store.

Until something changes at Apple, I’m sticking to the tried and true platform of Wintel.

These guys also inspired me with another little bit of labor-saving information: the ‘Home’ and ‘End’ keys. In your browser, Home takes you to the top of a page, while End goes all the way to the bottom. Amazing how often I use these keys now, in addition to the ‘Page Up’ and ‘Page Down’ for scrolling through pages. Plus, in your (non-Emacs) text editor, Home moves the cursor to the start of a line, while End goes to… you guessed it… the end of a line.

In case that page goes blank, the gist is editing
/cake/libs/view/helpers/html.php, which is the HTML Helper. Find the calls to yearOptionTag(), and change the third and fourth parameters to your start and end year, respectively. I used date("Y") and date("Y", strtotime("+4 years")).

[Edit] Alternately, just modify yearOptionTag() itself… the place to change the code is pretty obvious.