Unemployed Developer

I really should keep up on these link roundups, but you know…

How to Get Hired at a Startup

This is a real interesting post for those looking at getting hired at a startup. Most startups I know are looking for the relationship over the merits of a potential employee. This blog posts highlights some useful tips to help you show the company that you will fit in. If some of these tips don’t apply to you, then chances are low you will get hired. Read More

10 Performance Tips to Speed Up PHP

I like to read about these performance tips even though I know and do my best to practice them in my code. I think it’s important to always ensure your code not only works but works efficiently.. Read More

8 Very Useful jQuery forms

We all like lists don’t we? Well this site has a great but small list of useful jQuery form plugins. jQuery is my favorite JavaScript library and I don’t hesitate to use it where necessary. Some of these plugins are great to use in web forms. it can give your forms and added edge in professionalism, in my opinion. (beware of users who turn JavaScript off!!)… Read More

23 Pure CSS Effects/Solutions to Make JavaScript Angry!

I can’t just leave well enough alone can I? The last link I’m promoting JavaScript, and now I’m promoting CSS solutions to make JavaScript Angry! This is another nice long list of effects that can be achieved in CSS and/or JavaScript. some of these would be better suited as some users still browse the web with JavaScript off… Read More

If you haven’t heard of sIFR, it is Scalable Inman Flash Replacement which allows you to utilize flash, CSS and JavaScript to create custom typography on your web page. The font-family class in CSS can only load so many fonts as it will only load the fonts that the browser supports. sIFR allows us the option to use our own fonts and harness the SEO power of our text as we don’t have to rely on having images or flash files to display any custom text.

I’d like to look at a feature that more Flash developers would know about. I came across this issue when I was trying to find a solution to having drop shadows in my font, so my initial thought was to use the drop-shadow CSS class, but I didn’t like the lack of browser support for it, so that solution was out. sIFR seemed like the next reasonable solution to try. Since I prefer to use the jQuery library with any JavaScript that I use, I used the jQuery sIFR plugin. Read more »

I’m sure a lot of us have searched through the web and the job boards out there to find out how to pick an hourly rate for our freelance work. Normally you are told pick a number that you want to make in a year, subtract your expenses and voila you have a number. It’s certainly more complex than I’ve described, but in a nutshell that is how it can be done. For your help here is a great page that can help you determine your rate should you need help: Freelance Switch Hourly Rate Calculator. Read more »

Continuing my Lesser Known PHP Functions series, today’s function is parse_str. This function is an intriguing one as a web developer I often deal with URL strings that return as one string through the way I have my htaccess file set up.

Instead of using expode(), str_replace(), etc to get my URL variables, I can now use parse_str and get the variable information back in array format.
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I wanted to start a series on lesser known PHP functions and call_user_func_array came to me as a good starter topic. In my experience most programmers who use this PHP function are building or working with frameworks. Also, don’t get me wrong, this function may be used more often in your working environment than most, so it may or may not be lesser known to you. If you would like to suggest other ones or write an article, by all means let me know!
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