Blue Earth Interactive - Developer Blog

Managing Cache Flow Problems with Parameterized Resource Requests

Problem Browser caching is generally a good thing, but as web developers we often see it cause problems. If, as developers, we alter a resource file (css, javascript, images, etc) and the browser continues to use a cached version, we will not see the new behavior we’ve coded for. The results can be: Developers wasting time [...]

I Love Zend; I Hate Zend Forms

I actually like Zend_Form a lot, too. The Zend Framework does everything you could ask from a web library, all while making a legitimately object-oriented application out of PHP. That is no small feat. Zend_Form is equally great. Just subclass it! Rendering html elements, pre-loading data into fields, and validating the returned information require only [...]

Quick Tip: Using Javascript Keywords as Object Property Names

I recently spent an hour tracking down a Javascript error in IE7. The good news is I found the cause of the bug but I feel stupid because I knew not to do what I had done. Anyways I thought I would share what I re-learned. Javascript objects can have keywords and reservered words as [...]

VMWare Tools Install Error - The path "/usr/bin/gcc" is not valid path to the gcc binary.

Recently I cloned a Debian virtual machine from an ESX 4 host and copied it to a laptop for local use in VMWare Player. After moving a VM to such a different environment I fully expected to have to reinstall vmware-tools. So I mounted the vmware-tools by selecting “Install VMWare Tools” from the player menu, [...]

Get To Know An Earthling: Ben

Benton Jackson is one of two “old hacks” at Blue Earth. He’s been programming since junior high, in the days of paper tape on a 110 baud teletype. He learned early that good code organization was important, so when “structured programming” was invented it was quite natural. Much later, when he found out about “object [...]

Netbeans 7 with(out) Subversion 1.7

This week I reinstalled my OS (long overdue!) and while I was at it got the latest releases of many pieces of software I use. These updates included both NetBeans 7.0.1 and TortoiseSVN 1.7.1. Then I used TortioseSVN to check out a project and opened the project in NetBeans. The next time I started NetBeans [...]

Quick Tip: Clearing up iOS Multitasking

Successfully implementing multitasking in your iPhone apps can be difficult to understand and implement. With this post I will try to help you through the dense bog that is iOS multitasking by providing tips, tricks, and some code samples. Implementation Details Apple’s developer docs point out that enabling multitasking is limited to applications that make [...]

Get to Know an Earthling: Chris

Chris started freelance programming for extra money in high school. He attended the University of Minnesota for three years and earned a Bachelor of the Arts degree in Anthropology. Chris worked in non-profits from 2009-2010 before setting out to program full time as a freelancer. He joined the Blue Earth team in February 2011 where [...]

Quick Tip: Visual Studio Solutions

By default, each time you debug or run a Visual Studio solution the solution will launch its own web server. This can be very resource intensive, which in turn slows down your development. There is an easy way to change this default behavior: Highlight a solution in the Solution Explorer Press CTRL+W Press P This [...]

Magento Wordpress Integration Part 1

Introduction WordPress is an increasingly useful tool for rapid web development. The 2010 and 2011 base themes make it easy to skin, and the plugin engine gives developers access to the core without thwarting future core upgrades. Still, the community has yet to provide adequate integration of a full-fledged eCommerce solution. My past attempts to [...]