People will often ask a couple “who’s chasing who?” The argument is that one is always chasing the other. If a supermodel is dating a greasy nerd, then obviously the greasy nerd is the one chasing. How long is that relationship going to last? Who is the supermodel going to chase? She’s going to chase someone, but it won’t be the greasy nerd.

What if both partners were always chasing each other. If each partner always works to “out-do” the other, then both would feel like they were chasing, and being chased. I know what you’re thinking – “why do two people that love each other have to compete with one another? That’s like one-upping!” Look at it this way. If two college students constantly try to do better than each other throughout the semester, aren’t they each going to end up with a better grade than they would have had otherwise? It’s not “competing”, or “one-upping”. It’s simply doing your very best at whatever it is that you do. And when the competition is better, your performance has to be better (otherwise, you’re not competing.)

I wouldn’t consider myself to be an expert, or even a novice source of relationship advice, but I’ve seen some pretty serious relationships fail, and I’ve seen even more relationships continue on miserably (either for kids, fear of divorce, or just because it’s easier.) It doesn’t have to be like that. Unless you’re a crazy person, or you’re so stuck in your ridiculous ways that you can’t slightly modify a behavior just to please someone, you can make it better. If you’re a messy person, and your partner likes to keep things neat, figure out the better way. I think it’s obvious that cleaner is better, so the messy person should start being clean. Like nearly every other behavior, being messy is learned. You know what else can be learned? Being clean. If your partner happens to like having super green grass, then make it happen. Sure, it’s easier and cheaper to let the grass just die or burn. But it’s generally better to have green grass, and more importantly it’s going to make a difference with your partner.

If it seems like your partner wants a lot, step back and figure out if it actually is a lot. If you’re not sure, sit them down and ask them what exactly it is that they want. If it really is a lot, ask yourself if they’re doing it for the greater good (like just wanting a better life in general, and if they’re willing to help.) If they’re not, get rid of them because you’ll likely never make them happy.

The general principal of doing your best at whatever you do applies to everything. Don’t just do things, do things the best you can absolutely do them. Otherwise, get off this planet, because you’re just taking up space.

I recently discovered a component in ZF for solving this problem – Zend_Navigation. The best part about this component is that you can build the menu via code, or from an XML file. I’ve been testing out both, but I find the XML file to be much easier and clean-cut. Rather than putting the code into the layout again, I created a a view helper in /application/views/helpers named MenuHelper. Below is the view helper class

<?php
class Zend_View_Helper_MenuHelper
{
   public $view;

   public function menuHelper() {
      $config = new Zend_Config_Xml(APPLICATION_PATH.'/configs/menu.xml', 'nav');
      $container = new Zend_Navigation($config);

      $this->view->navigation($container)->UlClass = "main-nav";
      return $this->view->navigation()->menu()->render();
   }

   public function setView(Zend_View_Interface $view) {
      $this->view = $view;
   }
}

The lines specific to building the menu are highlighted. We start by reading in our configuration file, and defining the section we want to load – “nav”. We then create the Zend_Navigation object, define a class for the ul element (“main-nav”), and then render the menu to the view.

In our layout, we call the menu helper just like any other view helper:

<?php echo $this->menuHelper(); ?>

Almost done. Next, we need to populate the XML file with the menu items. In my example, I added a link back to Zend.com, and a link to the homepage of my site (index/index.) Even though it’s listed second, the home link will appear first because the order value is less than the order value on the zend link. The file is stored in the application/configs directory, named “menu.xml”.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<config>
   <nav>
      <zend>
         <label>Zend</label>
         <uri>http://www.zend.com</uri>
         <order>100</order>
      </zend>
      <home>
         <label>Home</label>
         <order>-100</order>
         <module>default</module>
         <controller>index</controller>
         <action>index</action>
      </home>
   </nav>
</config>

Lastly, we want to make sure that we apply a specific CSS class to the menu item if that’s our current URL. To do that, we do nothing! Why? Because Zend_Navigation does that for us!

Want to read more about what Zend_Navigation has to offer? Check out the reference guide on Zend’s website here.

Yesterday, in an effort to test what an early page cache system would look like, I spent some time to write a plugin for a standard ZF application. I used the generic MVC application that Zend Studio will make for you, and cleaned it up a bit. Here’s a breakdown of what I did to create the eary page cache plugin.

First, the ini configuration file. I added the section below to register the plugin with the front controller, and store the cache settings. Any kind of settings should ALWAYS be stored in configuration files. It can be XML, INI, or even a PHP array, but keep it separate from the rest of your application. In the case below, I’m using a lifetime of 3600 seconds (1 hour) for my cache. You’ll likely want to adjust this (and the other settings) based on your application’s needs.

resources.frontController.plugins.pagecache = "My_Controller_Plugin_PageCache"
pageCache.frontEnd = core
pageCache.backEnd = file
pageCache.frontEndOptions.lifetime = 3600
pageCache.frontEndOptions.automatic_serialization = true
pageCache.backEndOptions.lifetime = 3600
pageCache.backEndOptions.cache_dir = APPLICATION_PATH "/../cache/pageCache"

The next item to discuss is the Bootstrap file (/application/Bootstrap.php). While there isn’t anything specific to the plugin we’re creating, there is something that the plugin depends upon. In almost all of my ZF applications, I store the config in the Zend_Registry so that I can access it wherever I need it. Here is the section of code that does that:

protected function _initConfig()
{
    $config = new Zend_Config($this->getOptions(), true);
    Zend_Registry::set('config', $config);
    return $config;
}

Now, whenever we want to access the configuration settings, we can use the following code:

$config = Zend_Registry::get('config');

Another addition to the Bootstrap is registering the namespace where the plugin will live (line highlighted below):

protected function _initAutoload()
{
	// add autoloader empty namespace
	$autoLoader = Zend_Loader_AutoLoader::getInstance();
	$autoLoader->registerNamespace('My_'); // added this for the early page cache plugin
	$resourceLoader = new Zend_Loader_Autoloader_Resource(array(
	'basePath' 		=> APPLICATION_PATH,
	'namespace' 	=> '',
));

Last but not least is the plugin itself. I won’t go into too much depth on this because if you’re not familiar with at least the basics of a Zend MVC application, you’re probably not understanding the rest of this article. We start by creating methods for the dispatchLoopStartup and dispatchLoopShutdown. We use dispatchLoopStartup because after all this is an EARLY page cache. We use the dispatchLoopShutdown because at that point, we’ve gone through the full dispatch loop and have a complete response that we can cache for the next request.

In the dispatchLoopStartup, we grab the configuration from the Zend_Registry that we stored it to during bootstrapping. We use those settings to create the Zend_Cache object. The first check we do is to make sure we’re only caching GET requests. The next thing we do is create a cache pool key based on the page name. Next, we see if we can get a cache hit. If this is the first time we’re visiting the page, it’ll be a miss. If we do get a hit, we set the response based on what was in the cache, send the response, and then exit. If we didn’t exit, we would go through the normal dispatch loop and avoid caching.

In the dispatchLoopShutdown, we do a few checks to make sure that the page is a good candidate for caching. If it is, we save it in the cache based on the same key we generated in the dispatchLoopStartup method.

Here is the code for the plugin class:

class My_Controller_Plugin_PageCache extends Zend_Controller_Plugin_Abstract
{
	public static $doNotCache = false;
	public $cache;
	public $key;

	public function dispatchLoopStartup(Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract $request)
	{
		$pageCacheConfig = Zend_Registry::get('config')->pageCache;

		$this->cache = Zend_Cache::factory(
		$pageCacheConfig->frontEnd,
		$pageCacheConfig->backEnd,
		$pageCacheConfig->frontEndOptions->toArray(),
		$pageCacheConfig->backEndOptions->toArray());

		if (!$request->isGet()) {
			self::$doNotCache = true;
			return;
		}

		$path = $request->getPathInfo();

		$this->key = md5($path);

		$data = $this->cache->load($this->key);
		if ($data)
		{
			$response = $data;
			$this->setResponse($response);
			$this->getResponse()->sendResponse();
			exit;
		}
	}

	public function dispatchLoopShutdown()
	{
		if (self::$doNotCache
		|| $this->getResponse()->isRedirect()
		|| (null === $this->key))
		{
			return;
		}
		$this->cache->save($this->getResponse(), $this->key);
	}
}

As always, there will be cases where you don’t want a particular controller or action to be cached, in that case, we’ve built in a static property you can set in your controller that will stop the plugin from caching the response.

My_Controller_Plugin_PageCache::$doNotCache = true;

Below is a zip file contained the full MVC application, minus the Zend Framework library (to save space.) You should drop the Zend folder inside the library folder, and create the .htaccess file (assuming you’re using Apache with mod_rewrite enabled) to point to public/index.php.

If you’ve got questions, comments, or suggestions, leave them in the comments!

Get The Code!

I have the greatest mother in the world. Everyone says they love their Mom, and their Mom is the best, but that’s so subjective. My mom is objectively the best person ever made, and I’ll tell you why….

When I was younger, I always remember my mother being around. We had a traditional household, so most of the time, my Dad was at work. Some could argue he was at work too much, but I could see myself making the same mistake, so it’s neither here nor there. When I was in 3^rd grade, my parents got divorced. Naturally, my Mom started working more. She was taking care of mentally-handicapped adults in a day program full-time, but we never saw less of her. Somehow, she still managed to be in the lives of my older brother and I. We ALWAYS had home-cooked meals, and we ALWAYS ate together as a family.

In the summer when we were off from school, she would always leave a list of chores for my brother and I to complete before she came home from work. It wasn’t a big list, but we were kids, so we usually waited until the last minute, or conveniently forgot. If my Mom came home and things weren’t done, or weren’t done right, she’d be upset. My brother and I sometimes joke and make her out to be a monster, but I will be the same way with my kids because I know how the results turn out. It’s called teaching responsibility, and not a lot of parents used to do it, and even less do it nowadays. Growing up, I was one of the few kids in school that knew the value of hard work, and how important it was to be responsible. Back then I didn’t realize it, but now I do. Now that I see what came of it, it’s much easier to spot the differences. I had friends that would come home from school and play video games, or would just stay out all night. I wouldn’t even think about that for fear that my Mom would shoot me down if I asked her to do either. Sometimes my friends would ask if I could sleep over, and instead of saying “let me ask my Mom”, I’d just say “she said no.” Not because she was a monster, but because I knew what the answer would be. If I mouthed off, or didn’t do chores, I know that the answer would be no.

I also know parents that are on the extreme side – not letting their kids do anything, learn anything themselves, and controlling everything. I would say that my Mom had control over my brother and I growing up, but I wouldn’t say we were robots. We were kids, and kids need to be controlled because they don’t know any better. However, that’s not to say that she didn’t let us have our freedom. She let us learn our own lessons, and be ourselves – in fact, she encouraged it.

My Mom gave up a lot for my brother and I. As the children of divorced parents sometimes feel, my brother and I NEVER felt like we weren’t first priority. If there was something we needed, we had it. I’m not talking about the latest video game, or the coolest bicycle. When we went to school, name brands were everything. If you weren’t wearing Nike’s or Adidas shoes, you needed to be made fun of. My Mom understood that, so she made sure we had the things we “needed” in order to have a comfortable life in school. She never explicitly talked to me about it, but somehow she made me understand that it was wrong. I NEVER made fun of someone for not having name brand sneakers, and when I saw it happening, I always tried to intervene or change the subject. When I think about some of the saddest things I’ve ever seen in my life, I think back to those times where I saw someone getting made fun of because of their shoes. If bullies had a mother like mine, we wouldn’t have bullies, and certainly wouldn’t need to be passing laws prohibiting bullying.

As we got older, I realized more and more how much of a hard worker my Mom was. She tried a couple times to start her own business, so she could retire comfortably someday or leave her children something after she’s gone. Even if I didn’t agree with what she was doing specifically (I worked in the restaurant business and didn’t want my Mom to have to work that hard), I still admired her determination to make things work. She put in more heart than everyone else combined. Even when things seemed hopeless and defeat was likely inevitable, she kept on pushing. Things like that inspired me. I used to take long drives alone to clear my mind and process things I had experienced. I realize now that it was because I have such an amazing person in my life, and people weren’t designed to understand something so remarkable. I still don’t understand how or why my Mom is so amazing, but it’s something I’ve learned to live with.

At one point, we moved out of Taunton and into Fall River. Changing schools is one of the most difficult things a child (or teen, as we were) can go through. Tauntonwas “school-by-choice”, so even though we lived in another city, they allowed us to attend (presuming we kept good grades and didn’t stir up any trouble.) Before my older brother was able to drive, my mother brought us to school. Every day of the week, she would wake up, get ready, get my baby brother ready, and bring us to school. She’d do the same thing in the afternoon to pick us up. Whether it was down-pouring, or there was 8” of snow on the ground, she made those compromises so that we didn’t have to change schools – all this while she was working to provide for our family. I feel the need to disclose that we did go to Fall River schools, but only for about a month. My older brother did something stupid in high school that set off my Mom (for good reason), so she moved us toDurfeeHigh School inFall River as punishment. The school was doing us more harm than good, so she transferred us back. It sucked, but it definitely put us in our places.

About 7 years ago, my Mom was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS.) It’s a disease the causes the body’s immune system to incorrectly target the myelin (the tissue that insulates and protects the nerve endings in your brain) as an enemy. In a nutshell, the body targets and destroys itself. The results vary, ranging from uncontrollable body spasms, to paralysis and loss of vision. I helped my Mom with her daily injections of Copaxone until she tried other medications that didn’t require such a destructive treatment path as putting a needle in a different part of your body every day. She now goes to the doctor for a monthly infusion (similar to a chemotherapy), and is doing better than she was when she was on the daily injection treatments. Nearly every Friday night, she goes to a local restaurant to dance (she probably dances better than most young girls) just so she knows she still can. Luckily, I don’t think I could ever see her stop dancing. Multiple Sclerosis doesn’t have a cure, so it’s never been defeated, but it’s certainly going to have a hell of a time trying to significantly effect my Mom.

Still though, she keeps pushing. She still invites everyone over for the holidays, and has a spread that could rival something you’d see on Food Network. People are always amazed when they see how much food and desserts. She always caters to everyone, so if there’s going to be a vegan at one of her parties, she’ll have vegan-friendly items on the menu. And it’s not just quantity – it’s quality. Again, people always say their Mom is the best cook. But objectively, my Mom cooks the best food. She is married to a chef that’s been cooking his whole life and is a great cook – yet she can still put him to shame. She puts love into everything that she cooks – no matter when, no matter what, no matter who.

As my brother and I found girlfriends (now his wife, and my fiancé), she was very supportive, and welcoming to them. Of course though, things aren’t always fine and dandy. When I wasn’t seeing eye-to-eye with my fiancé, my Mom would ask for the whole story. I was her son, So I’d expect her to side with me, but she didn’t always. When I was wrong, she called me out on it. It was another one of those things I hated at the time, but looking back, I wouldn’t have it any other way. When I’m right is when she sides with me. If neither of us is right, she offers advice to help me work toward a solution. Other parents will make spouses feel uncomfortable, non-existent, or even disrespect them. There have been so many times where I didn’t feel welcomed by my in-laws, and I do everything I can to prove myself. It’s discouraging, and honestly makes me sad knowing that nothing I could do (except throw myself in front of a train) could make some people happy. (Okay, maybe not throw myself in front of a train, but definitely walk away.) Luckily, my Mom taught me things to counteract behavior like that, and I am comforted knowing that my fiancé will never have to feel those same feelings.

My Mom never went to college. Back in the 80’s, most girls graduated high school and had children. It’s different now, but back then, that’s how it was. However, she still showed me the importance of college. She would go so far as to make an example out of herself in an effort to get me to enroll in college (though it was a bad example because my Mom is also one of the smartest people I know.) When I graduated high school, I wanted to go to New England Tech. She brought me there, I passed all of the entry exams with flying colors, and then we went to enroll. Apparently, it costs about $15,000 per semester to attend that school, and we neither the cash nor the credit to pull that off. I was pissed, but she persevered. She didn’t want me to give up, so she kept at it. I ended up enrolling at Bristol Community College, and she paid for my first class with the money she didn’t have. We both knew she wasn’t going to be able to pay for my schooling, but she didn’t have to. She wanted to get me started on the right foot, and the rest would take care of itself.

She taught me the skills and responsibilities I needed to be able to hold a job while I was in school and balance everything. I’ve been employed every day of my life (with some overlap) since I was 14 years old – full-time since I was 16. I held the same job for the first 5 years of my working life, and have never been fired from any employer. Today, I’ve got a career to be proud of. In fact, it’s a life to be proud of. I own my own home with my fiancé, and am getting married in less than 8 months. My brother and sister-in-law live right down the road, and I’m closer with them than I’ve ever been. My little brother (who I haven’t mentioned here too much because he wasn’t born until I was 14) is one of the most important people in life, and I am proud to say that I helped raise him. He even takes after me (so many people say he’s like a mini-me) so every time he has a victory, it’s like a victory for me.

My Mom is the most caring, supportive, loving person I’ve ever met in my life. She means more to me than I could ever express in a blog post or any other form of communication. She taught me 99.98% of everything I know about life, love, family, respect, and responsibility.

The song I chose for the mother-son dance at my wedding is something that took me about 2 years to choose. I knew it when I heard it (to be fair, I had some help in being introduced to it), and it’s really important to my Mom that the song has some meaning and resonates for both of us. She knows I have found the perfect song, and has been begging me to hear it, but I want it to be a surprise. Hopefully I don’t let her down, because in 26 years, she has never let me down…

// first, include the files we'll need
require 'Zend/Paginator.php';
require 'Zend/Paginator/Adapter/Array.php';

$array = array('1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7'); // array of data to paginate
$paginator = new Zend_Paginator(new Zend_Paginator_Adapter_Array($array)); // create the paginator
$paginator->setCurrentPageNumber((int)($_GET['page'])); // get the current page number that we're on
$paginator->setItemCountPerPage(2); // only show two per page

// these are the variables we'll likely need in order to create the "prev/next page" links
$currentPageNumber = $paginator->getCurrentPageNumber();
$itemCountPerPage = $paginator->getItemCountPerPage();
$totalItemCount = $paginator->getTotalItemCount();
$totalPageCount = $paginator->count();

Now that we’ve got the paginator set-up and loaded with our data, we can now output the HTML for the prev/next links.

// if not page 1, show the "prev" page link
<!--?php if ($currentPageNumber != 1):?-->
<a href="/?page=<?php echo $currentPageNumber - 1 ?>">Prev</a>
<!--?php endif; ?--></pre>
<pre>
// if not the last page, show the "next" page link
<!--?php if ($currentPageNumber < $totalPageCount):?-->
   <a href="/?page=<?php echo $currentPageNumber + 1 ?>">Next</a>
<!--?php endif; ?-->

// display each item on the current page in the paginator
<!--?php if (count($paginator)): ?--></pre>
<pre>
<!--?php endif; ?-->

You’ll likely want to display the results differently, but I just wanted to show a quick example since you’ll have to show the prev/next links and traverse through each pages items regardless of your implementation.

Got comments or questions? Leave a message below.

I recently won a 99cent domain from @Dotster, my hosting provider, so that’ll certainly help if I decide on a new name.

My older brother, Dominic, will hopefully be joining me on this venture on this business side of things (he can communicate with clients in ways that I can’t even dream of.)

The business will be part-time for both of us, who are employed full-time – but don’t let that make you think it’ll be back-burner material for either of us!

More to come!

Well, I’m proud to announce that it was deployed yesterday morning, and will be announced to the RhodeIslandComedy.com community within the week.

So far, you can view upcoming events, view locations and events specifically at those locations, and even view the profiles of comedians listed on the full site. Soon, you’ll be able to find events by geographic location. Whether you’re looking for events within 10 miles of Providence, or within 20 miles of your current location, it’ll all be possible soon.

Wanna check it out? Visit RhodeIslandComedy.com from your iOS or Android device and you’ll be pointed to the mobile version automatically! Or you can visit it directly by going to m.rhodeislandcomedy.com.

Well, as of about 10 minutes ago, I just published the tool I’ve been working on. I didn’t put a whole lot of time toward it, and it isn’t bulletproof, but it certainly does the trick and can save a boatload of time. It’s open for anyone to use, and currently resides at wps.benjamin-t.com.

In the near future (once it helps speed up development time on other WordPress site projects I’m currently working on), I plan to expand upon it to allow for different types of values (string, numeric, boolean, etc.), and enable default values.

Let me know what you think of it in the comments below. Happy PHPing!

I personally am not interested in native applications. There are just too many devices, and too much maintenance involved. Then, (in the case of Apple) the App Store has to approve of your application. Instead, I’d rather go the direction of mobile-optimized web sites – particularly using the HTML5 features offered by the most popular devices (read “non-Windows phones”.) I can get a website in the browser of an iPhone that looks and feels better than a native app, and the same goes for Android devices.

The mobile-optimized version of RhodeIslandComedy.com will obviously be a simplified version of the full site. My question though, is exactly what features folks would want? Right now, visitors can see upcoming events, and the locations at which those events are happening. I’m wondering if we could find not only the upcoming events, but the ones closest to your physical location. So if you’re in Lincoln, it’s going to give you the line-up of events happening for the next few nights at Catch a Rising Star in Twin River. Perhaps give folks the ability to post comments about shows as they happen. I don’t know – they’re just thoughts.

Anyone have any comments? Not that I think anyone is reading this stuff (I use this site more as a portfolio and outlet for my thoughts, rather than a blag that people are actually going to read.) 

Right now, the utility will take in a page title and slug, and then any number of settings you want to define. Right now, it only supports text settings, so on/off switches and dropdowns aren’t supported. Once you have everything configured, it packages up the plugin into a zip file for download. Then the user just needs to extract and upload to their wp-content/plugins directory.

I’d like to add support for different datatypes, and I still need to style the interface of the application, but functionally it’s deployable. In reading Getting Real, I’m thinking I should deploy it without the additional features and then add them in after. But then I’ll likely need to touch the styling twice, so now I’m not sure.

Any suggestions?

One thing is for sure, it’s not getting released without some level of styling. It literally has no CSS.