Hi, I’m Chris, a web craftsman making things like Mapalong & Brooklyn Beta with my friends at Analog.
The fifth edition of PHP Advent has come to a close. Since 2007, we have published 120 articles, many of which are just as relevant and useful today as when they were first published. This year, Sean and I decided to choose only authors who did not wr…
I'll level with you. I've not really paid much attention to all the chatter about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT-IP Act. I'm busy, and I know anything to do with government policy as it relates to the Internet is going to be a big bum…
Before I introduced the fantastic Viktoria Harrison on Thursday morning, I shared a couple of lessons I've learned over the years. It wasn't really an opening keynote or anything, but I thought I'd share them here for anyone who missed it. I'll try to bl…
In his own words: Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. Many thoughts and words have been shared, but none are more meaningful to me than these. …
A few months ago, I wrote a post entitled Ideas of March, and I pledged to blog more regularly. Just a few months later, I find myself having to renew that commitment, because I've let being busy excuse me from exploring new thoughts and sharing those…
When I heard the news that a root CA named DigiNotar had issued a fraudulent Google SSL certificate, the first thing I wanted to do was make sure my computer was safe. This is a quick post to help you do the same. Since I use a Mac, my first stop was …
I'm a domain addict. For years, I've maintained a portfolio of more than one hundred domains, most of which were being reserved for later use. I'm an imaginative person, and I love the Web, so I have lots and lots of ideas that require a domain name. …
Every time I need to sort a multi-dimensional array in PHP, I have to look it up. It's not quite as quick and easy to look up as most things, so I'm going to blog a quick example. Here's a simple array of users: <?php $users = array()…
Years ago, I wrote a book on HTTP. At the time, there wasn't a simple, comprehensive reference for HTTP beyond the various specs, and a really good understanding of HTTP is important if you want to become a really good web developer, which I did. As I wa…
The inaugural Brooklyn Beta was the first collaboration between Analog and Fictive Kin. We're both groups of friends making things we love, and we love working together. We even have a portmanteau picked out for what to call ourselves when we join togeth…
I really like the way Trent describes blogs: There's something sacred about reading a blog post on someone else's site. It's like visiting a friend's house for a quick meal 'round the breakfast table. It's personal — you're in their …
For many PHP developers, calling session_start() and using $_SESSION for stuff you want to persist from page to page is all there is to know about sessions. This is understandable, because PHP's native session support is so simple and reliable. But, what…
We need a blog revival. For the past few years, I've been a pretty active Twitter user. As a result, I feel very tuned into what's happening in the web design and development community. It's pretty cool. Recent events such as Twitter taking the @girlg…
This April, the PHP community is going to descend upon Nashville, Tennessee for its inaugural PHPCon. Judging by the speakers and attendees, it's going to be a conference to remember and one that will be talked about for some time. It's being organized p…
I just remade this site using Lithium (something I'll blog about later), and I wanted to note a change that relates to Drew McClellan's post on OpenID. I'm no longer supporting OpenID. I still really like OpenID, but I don't think the lack of adopt…
I like the Web. It's simple, open, and accessible. It's robust. It's also inherently altruistic; every link gives, and links are what ties it all together. People have always used the Web in their own way, and this is partly what makes it great, but s…
For the eighth year in a row — a milestone I had to double-check to believe — I'm taking a moment to record personal highlights from the previous year. This was a landmark year for me in many ways. When 2010 began, …
