Last night I crafted the largest MySQL query I've ever used. It's very pretty:
SELECT g.group_display, g.group_id, gm.admincount, e.eventcount
FROM groups g
LEFT JOIN (
    SELECT g.group_id AS group_id, COUNT(gm.member_id) AS admincount
    FROM groups g
    LEFT JOIN groupmembers gm
    ON gm.group_id = g.group_id
    GROUP BY g.group_id
) AS ( Read more... )

During a break from bug-hunting (why are they so hard to replicate? why?) I started messing around with a pretty javascript library called modalbox.
After the usual add-a-line-to-your- I was away. Knocked up a quick ajax callback and now plan to start messing around with slick user interaction. Take a look at the site: http://www.ussu.net/epicentre ( Read more... )

It's been brought to my attention that I've not posted anything interesting in a while. Unfortunately this is a sad reflection of my present position, both in life, and with epicentre.... So I thought todays post would be less of a code snippet and more of a general note about writing a large piece of software ( Read more... )

Buying me an espresso maker for Christmas was a demonstration of how well my aunt knows me ( Read more... )

Just found this http://tomythius.livejournal.com/66369.html from my time in East Slope.
It's heartening to realise how far I've come in six months - about a mile south and slightly up the hill.
Oh, and these days it's tinned mandarin segments.

So, I'm back. Not going to bore y'all with details of my whistle-stop Christmas, except of course to inform you that I'm the proud owner of a lovely new camera.
To business though. Tonight I've written a small script that authenticates a user against the USCS ldap server and displays their friendly name:

$uid = '';
$passphrase = '';

echo("Starting auth ( Read more... )

I seem to be on a bit of a geek-spree of late. What can I say? I writes what they wants me to write!
Anyway, today I learnt the hard way that the Firebug console object (though "wicked cool") is only available when the client has the 'bug installed. A bit of a D'Oh! moment... Should have been obvious, but I was seduced by firebugs wonderful ( Read more... )

Now's your chance to kill British prudishness:
http://www.nhs.uk/Pages/Bodymapvote.aspx
The NHS are hosting a public debate over whether it is appropriate to show genitals on their new body-map site.
Take a look, and email them your views.

This, on the other hand, is my hot hot sex.
$text = str_replace('="/', '="http://sussex.ac.uk/', $text);
Struggled for ages with regex before realising that this nifty one-liner is good enough to externalise all internal links and images.
Huxxah!

You can thanks USIS for this mess...
function splitdesc ($desc, $option) {
     $data = explode('
', $desc, 2);
     if ($option == 'start'||$option == 'finish') {
         $months = array(1=>"January",2=>"February",3=>"March",4=>"April",5=>"May",6=>"June",7=>"July",8=>"August",9=>"September",10=>"October",11=>"November",12=>"December");
         $ ( Read more... )