websitedesignby.com » php

Video Player

Ross — Sat, 07 May 2011 13:56:58 +0000

We now have a demo up featuring a video player developed by Ross Sabes.

This player utilizes a full featured custom back-end video database management tool.

Each video title can support multiple files in a variety of formats (FLV, MP4, Ogg, WebM, etc…) and settings for maximum compatibility and performance across the widest possible array of devices. The player can be customized to detect the users bandwidth and play the most suitable Flash format available. If the visitor is using an iPad, iPhone or iPod the player is programmed to use the compatible MP4 format with both high and low bandwidth options if available.

Videos can be assigned to multiple pages by the administrator.

Select pages for the video to appear on.

Videos can also be tagged for search engines and other custom functionality.

Visit the front-end here
For a demo of the back-end contact us.

This program was developed using:
MooTools
MediaBox
and MooFlow

Wordpress Website Development Work Flow: wp-config.php

Ross — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 12:59:00 +0000

When I am working on a website I have a local development version that I program and test locally. When an update is implemented, it is tested locally before it is copied to the live server. Wordpress sites are treated no differently. Here is how you can make the wp-config.php portable to work in your live and local environment. Simply replace the variables below with the actual information for your web site and you will be have a wp-config.php that can happily thrive in both environments.

I defined an additional constant ‘LIVE’ that I can refer to elsewhere in my code to determine if I am on the live server or not.

wp-config.php

if($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']==’livedomain.com’ || $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']==’www.livedomain.com’){

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘db_name_live’); // The name of the database
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘mysql_username_live’); // Your MySQL username
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘mysql_password_live’); // …and password
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // db host
define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);
define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”);
define(‘AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
define(‘SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
define(‘LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
define(‘LIVE’, true);

}else{

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘name_of_db_local’); // The name of the database
define(‘DB_USER’, ‘mysql_username_local’); // Your MySQL username
define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘mysql_password_local’); // …and password
define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // db host
define(‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);
define(‘DB_COLLATE’, ”);
define(‘AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
define(‘SECURE_AUTH_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
define(‘LOGGED_IN_KEY’, ‘put your unique phrase here’);
define(‘LIVE’, false);

}

// You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique prefix
$table_prefix = ‘wp_’; // Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!

// Change this to localize WordPress. A corresponding MO file for the
// chosen language must be installed to wp-content/languages.
// For example, install de.mo to wp-content/languages and set WPLANG to ‘de’
// to enable German language support.
define (‘WPLANG’, ”);

/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

if ( !defined(‘ABSPATH’) )
define(‘ABSPATH’, dirname(__FILE__) . ‘/’);
require_once(ABSPATH . ‘wp-settings.php’);
?>

MySQL Queries

Another thing to be conscious of when moving between a live and local server environment with Wordpress are couple of records in the wp_options table of the database. The siteurl and liveurl records will be different in your local environment and live environment. If you copy your database from one to the other, just run the appropriate query below (with the liveurl and localurl variables changed to your actual data) depending on if you are copying from local to live or live to local.

Live to Local Query

Run query on local database.

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value=’http://localurl.com’ WHERE option_name=’siteurl’ ;

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value=’http://localurl.com’ WHERE option_name=’home’

Local to Live Query

Run query on live database.

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value=’http://liveurl.com‘ WHERE option_name=’siteurl’ ;

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value=’http://liveurl.com’ WHERE option_name=’home’

If you have any questions or suggestions, your comments are welcome below.

NatureSong 2009 Redesign

Ross — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:32:31 +0000

naturesong.net was redesigned in 2009 to address some issues with the shopping cart, integrate a reseller login so resellers can log in and purchase CDs at a discount and NET 30 payment terms and generally update the look and feel of the site.

The shopping cart and content management system is completely custom. I decided to create a custom system for this site because I had a clear vision of how it should work. The owner, Bill Leverick, wanted to be able to easily update the CDs available for sale. I knew there were off-the-shelf shopping carts and content management systems I could probably have used or customized. Because these products had an ‘audio sample’ component to them that we needed to attach and be able to associate audio files with multiple products, I decided to build it myself. The site integrates PayPal Website Payments Pro for it’s merchant service provider and the UPS API to get shipping information from UPS in real-time for orders with quantities above 2 CDs. The AJAX overlay for each product uses the jQuery framework to handle the JavaScript effects.

In retrospect I am happy with my decision to go completely custom with this site. It allowed me to develop exactly what the client was looking for without excess functionality that he didn’t want or need and might have confused the process. It also allowed me to address his fine-tuning requests quickly and not have to compromise because of an off-the-shelf software limitation.

Here is a quote from the owner:

Ross,
I just logged on to check out the new NatureSong site that you activated today. I am very pleased not only with the graphics, but with the built in ability for me to make necessary changes to the products. You have done a great job and I would heartily recommend you to anyone. Please feel free to use this site and my other web site, Cape Cod & New England Gift Show as examples of your work.
Thanks,
Bill Leverick

View Project

The original site I developed in 1998 can be seen here.

UPS Rates API Example Using PHP

Ross — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:38:56 +0000

This example uses the php class developed by Mark Sandborn (now hosted at code.google.com here). I made a couple slight modifications to the class. Using Marks’ class I created this form to serve as a starting point for you to present your user with various UPS shipping options and their associated costs to integrate into your own shopping cart.

download my sourcecode for the form
Rates and Service Selection XML Tool Developers Guide from UPS

Happy coding!

phpFlickr

Ross — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 01:32:58 +0000

I made a random flickr image loader using phpFlickr.

It loads a random image from based on the search term entered in the text box. Search terms are saved in a database and reused randomly on each refresh.