Webonaut

Changing your Mac OSX Terminal's default text editor

2012-01-01T13:14:00.000-08:00

For just this session, simply type:

export EDITOR=emacs

(or replace emacs with vim, nano or whatever)

Personally, I like to use emacs on servers, but on my Mac TextWrangler is way more helpful. One of the great things about TextWrangler is that you can get it to magically pop edit requests out of the Terminal simply by installing it and typing "edit". To make all other programs use this method try:

export EDITOR="edit -w"

For a more permanent fix, add the same line to your .bashrc file. If you've not already got one of those, type:

edit ~/.bashrc

(The one exception is git, which you'll need to configure thus:)

git config core.editor "edit -w"

Mobile Detection Script (Javascript redirect for iPhone / Android / Blackberry)

2011-10-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

I struggled to find us a usable mobile javascript redirect - even StackOverflow's helpful crew were awash with geeky prejudice along the lines of "not all mobiles have javascript enabled"...
Almost all of the modern web requires javascript to be on, and if you're a) one those geeks who has it switched off or b) have a pre-Android/iPhone/Blackberry handset then you can try your luck with the main non-mobile site anyway.

So here goes - a short, quick, simple mobile detect + redirect script:

/* Klik Mobile Detection Script */
function touchAndGo(where) {
var ua = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
if (ua.search("iphone") > -1 || ua.search("ipod") > -1 || ua.search("android") > -1 || ua.search("blackberry") > -1 || screen.width <= 480) {
location.href=where;
}
}
touchAndGo("http://touch.mysite.com/");

Voice Memos Don't Sync To Your iTunes?

2011-07-15T15:25:00.000-07:00

Lots of people with this problem, lots of RUBBISH advice from Google. Simply delete the PLAYLIST called "Voice Memos" from your iTunes (don't worry, your existing memos won't be deleted, just the playlist itself) then re-sync. Voila.

Another tip that works if you just want one explicitely is to Trim the voice memo on your phone (click the trim button) you don't actually have to reduce it's size in any way, it's enough to convince iTunes that this is a new memo.

FTP / SSH - Why the distinction?

2011-04-13T06:06:00.000-07:00

Using FTP and SSH on a daily, nay hourly basis - I understand the uses, application and history of both. However, is there REALLY any need in the modern age for a distinction between the two? Is it essential that an SSH client have no concept of the client system it's operator is sat at? Or is simple stubborn geeky conservatism to blame for not allowing the out-of-the-box thinking to put these two protocols in the same box?

ssh my.server
sudo chmod -R u+rw htdocs
cd htdocs
put index.html
get styles.css
exit
happy

MySQL TimeStamp Confusions sorted!

2011-03-25T00:12:00.001-07:00

Confused by MySQL DATETIME timestamp fields not updating / updating at the wrong time? KlikApps have a super guide at http://www.klikapps.co.uk/mysql-timestamps-created-updated-explained.html

Why New EU Regulations Around Cookies Are Wrong

2011-03-10T03:09:00.000-08:00

New EU regulations mean websites will have to alert users when a cookie is used http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/18/eu_cookie_monster/

This is crazy. Cookies are basically barcodes, that a website asks your computer to hold on to on the first page that you load, then gets sent the barcode number back each time you ask for a new page. Without it, the web-site would not be able to keep track of whether you are logged in, what you've put in your basket, etc.

Anyone even marginally technical can show that cookies:
a) pose no security risks in themselves
b) are used by every DYNAMIC web-site. In fact, you cannot shop or interact with a modern web-site WITHOUT cookies, so pretty much every single site uses them in one way or another.

So the fear is that this crazy law will pop-up a message on every single site you visit - your default response being frustration, followed by clicking 'accept' - because if you don't you can't use that site you've visited!

What it sounds like to me is "we're concerned about internet security but we don't really know what we're talking about and we've heard about these 'cookie' things so we're going to clamp down on those"

What the EU are TRYING to do is stop web-sites that track your movements then pass that information back to some central service. Well, this won't make any difference because if you're visiting a web-site presumably you want to use it and therefore have to click 'accept' regardless what they do with that data.

WHY IT WON'T HAPPEN
So who is going to generate these pop-ups? It would have to be either the browser itself, or the developer.
BROWSERS: SO - the browser that has this forcibly switched on will be replaced by one in which it is OPTIONAL. Therefore, browser manufacturers aren't going to be keen to put this 'feature in'. Which leaves it up to the:
DEVELOPERS: 'Good' developers might implement it. But will the 'bad' developers who want to place tracking cookies? Nope.

So there you have it - a completely inept, technical EU decision made by people who have no grasp of technology.

Why UK-wide Firewall Will Be Difficult to Implement

2010-12-20T12:44:00.000-08:00

Conservative Ed Vaisey has announced that he wants the UK to filter Porn by default - either with a Chinese style country-wide wall, or by encouraging ISPs to do so. Nobly he is including the provision to then allow people to call up their ISPs and have it turned off for them.

It's an interesting idea, and you can see why this is a great thing for kids accessing the Internet, but - and it's quite a big but - it won't be easy to do. Why? We filter out child-porn don't we? Isn't this just an extension? Well... no. Here's why.

There is a grand consensus between all major ISPs and - crucially - web-sites that child-porn is a freedom-of-speech bridge too far. But the same is NOT true of mainstream porn. In order to block it, you would therefore have to block Flickr, Google, MySpace and a whole host of other pillars of the web-world. Without them also agreeing, you would be looking at such a crippled net that the majority would simply opt to have it switched off, thus defeating the point.

And - as Wired points out - there's also the argument that as soon as one kid figures out how to use a proxy site, the other's in his class will be on 4Chan before you can close an indiscreet tab. Then there's always Torrents & P2P...

Not impossible, but very, very, tricky Ed.

2010-12-09T01:34:00.000-08:00

I'm not a big fan of Microsoft or Facebook, but I am hugely impressed by Gate's Philanthropy - as it is making a real difference. His example is now being followed by Mark Zuckerberg amongst others in giving away at least half of their great wealth: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/09/billionaires-giving-pledge-wealth

You could argue that this is simply the most exclusive vanity badge in existence (which it is), but regardless of their reasons for doing it - that does not stop the fact that what they are doing is great.

Massage their egos with the full list here: http://givingpledge.org/#enter

Twitter Is Censoring Trends

2010-12-06T17:47:00.000-08:00

If you look at the speed with which Wikileaks is trending (go on - open up Echofon or any other Twitter client and search for wikileaks) it's ASTONISHING. Faster than the royal wedding did immediately after announcement a couple weeks back. What's more, it's almost ENTIRELY in support of what Wikileaks are doing - and disgust at how they are being attacked by governments who supposedly enshrine free speech (or free speech about OTHER people perhaps)

Scarily, not only have Amazon, PayPal and American Express bowed to government pressure (and - after all - WL have not actually done anything illegal) but Twitter are NOT trending this.

Now - go back to Echofon and try searching on what Twitter say is actually trending, for example #jedwardreply - notice any difference is speed of tweeting?

TWITTER - THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE

The 3 keys to the modern Good Life

2010-12-03T09:43:00.000-08:00

The meaning of life? It's easy*:

1) a means of passive income

2) longevity research to have a breakthrough with regenerative health

3) permanent subscription to OnLive + monster broadband

(*If you're a selfish hedonist with no responsibilities and a trust fund)

5 Implications of The Move To The Cloud

2010-11-23T13:17:00.000-08:00

My music now comes largely from Spotify, my games from Steam or OnLive, my movies from NetFlix - Cloud services are taking over...

I cannot envisage a future other than where any entertainment form is available anywhere... games, music, video... in car, on my mobile (OnLive player for iOS anyone? Latest console games on my iPad?), on my profile, inside other games / virtual worlds / social media v2 lives

5 Implications of The Move To The Cloud:
1. Consoles: will eventually die out
2. Game shops: will go the way of Video shops (see Blockbuster now filing for bankruptcy... "Game" will follow in a few years)
3. Convergence: of Social Media with games/music/film. Web-plugins for OnLive - or whichever service supercedes it - make the next installation of Call Of Duty embedded into your Facebook page - with hooks into your friends & Social Media
4. Apple Pwn: Expect to see Apple finally crack the missing "serious games" component with a buy out of OnLive - or their own version sandwiched elegantly into a future release of iTunes / AppleTV
5. Creativity: I'd like to see more artistic combinations of all of these - certainly with my own passions for music and coding I shall be thinking about how these worlds can be used to create something that is more than just the sum of it's Geeky-Cool parts.

How Your Social Identity Will Be Used By Vending Machines

2010-11-16T08:36:00.000-08:00

News from Japan of their smart vending machines gaining - if not quite self-awareness - awareness of others is interesting for a couple reasons. Firstly, being able to identify customers age / gender is COOL and CLEVER, with obvious applications for targetted advertising / shifting more soft-drinks... but it's clear where we're going here:

IN THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE

- More automated machines instead of humans - (BAD THING IMO for everything except for shareholder returns)

- Even more of those devil-bitch-speaking-auto-tills (that supermarkets so love and customers hate)

- The spread of til machine equivalents to everywhere else human-costs can be "saved" - Bank Tellers, Argos, etc

LONGER TERM

- Social Networking / online identity integration

How this final point functions is yet to be determined, but the technology will have OAuth as a forebear. Not sure how these points will identify you yet (the successors of rfID tags/Oyster?), but once it has (and you've given authorisation for it to do so - probably at a group-of-devices level) it will be able to target products and ads directly, debit your account, communicate your choices, earn you badges / loyalty points, cancel your order for it to be delivered at home, etc.

MORE INFO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr-AGV1tqT0

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8136743/Japanese-vending-machine-tells-you-what-you-should-drink.html

Really Fancy HTML4/JQuery stuff

2010-11-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

Norwich web-developers Klik appear to have what looks like an HTML5 active logo! It's pretty swish actually - check it out www.klikhome.co.uk

It's this sort of thing that makes Flash seem unnecessary - particularly with it's iPad / iPhone friendliness.

When will we have 3D web cams?

2010-11-03T11:29:00.000-07:00

We've got the displays to re-create the image, so when will be get dual stereoscopic 3D web-cams? Then we can have that "nearly really there" experience - and in full colour too, not like ol'green holographic Princess Leia...)

The Future Of The Apple Mac?

2010-10-20T12:44:00.001-07:00

Apple's event today was notable not for the shiny new MacBook Air (lovely as the expensive little netbook is) but for the meteoric rise of the Mac laptop. Presumably the growth (to 1 in 5 computers sold being a Mac) comes from a shift in customer perception of Apples as "weird" - a charge led by the myriad Apple Stores popping up, but principally due to consumers getting and loving iPhones and iPads, reasoning other Apple products must also be good.

Sadly, as I've noted before the desktop Mac OSX has some quirks that make it frustrating for long-time users, let along the confusion of newbies. Apple must have been reading blogs like this, as they appear to be addressing some of these foibles with OSX Lion (due in Summer 2011). I hoping that the importance of change on the desktop is not lost on the folks in Cupertino - customers want as easy an experience with OSX as on their iOS devices. If Steve can fix it so that a) Launching applications is much more intuitive (i.e. like the iPad), b) traditional quirks (such as no full screen, fixed menu bars, weird behaving expand buttons, etc) are not treated as sacred cows c) Finder can be made to suck less - they will wipe the floor properly.

As a Mac lover, I welcome the day that we turn around and realise that MS are the underdogs. That day will come soon... so long as they don't mess up the merging of OSX and iOS.

The 3 Big Differences between Twitter and Facebook

2010-10-18T03:38:00.000-07:00

Which is best for marketing - Twitter or Facebook? Most CEOs don't know the difference apparently, and some predict there can be only one winner. That's clearly NOT the case, and the differences are marked and intractable (i.e. neither side can easily develop their applications to incorporate the good points of the other). Here are the 3 big differences:

1. Facebook focuses on the individual - Twitter focuses on the information.

For example, you get photo albums (and massive amounts of other information) on Facebook (but not Twitter) which means:

a) With Facebook you get a load of information about each person, with some fluff about how they've just eaten an oatcake and got a new cow on FarmVille - with Twitter you get what each person wants to say without the distractions

b) Facebook a voyeur's dream - the boys I know use it to goggle at the girls in their life - the girls to compete with how good / shit their life is and marvel / secretly cheer at other people's lives. It's like Hello! magazine for people you know...

2. Friends vs Followers. Twitter allows non-friend followers. This is essential for celebrities, and means they can broadcast without fear of instantaneous and damning reprisals all over their wall. I just can't get to be Bill Gate's friend on Facebook. This may seem restrictive, but it also means that Twitterers can have many, many more followers than Facebook users can have friends - meaning a Tweet has the potential to hit a massive wider audience - far wider than just your circle of friends - with retweets potentially going to the whole user base. (If you can get this away, it is a marketteer's wet-dream...)

3. Mega-store Model. Facebook is a one-stop-shop that covers users's email,IM,shopping,photo-storage etc needs - like Tesco. Twitter is simply bare bones 140 char messages that link out to the wider internet (apparently 1/3rd of all tweets contain a link of some kind) - more like a town centre. Many users prefer the simplicity of Facebook's one login one system approach - others prefer the power of combining every other cloud app on the web.

As you can see - both have their fans, and differences. There's always the risk of TESCO taking everywhere over - but can you see a day when it is the only shop? Other companies, although selling through TESCO, would much rather engage with you themselves. For marketeers I would plump with the power of the Tweet. For games developers, it's obviously Facebook.

I suspect that there will be a backlash against Facebook at some point - but not unlike the dislike of Tesco - people will still secretly use it.

XBox 360 / Wii / PS3 figures show 360 way out ahead

2010-10-15T12:33:00.000-07:00

US GAMES CONSOLES SOLD IN SEPTEMBER

XBox 360: 484,000 units

PS3: 312,000

Wii: 254,000

So, this was a surprise to me today when NPD released the figures... not because of the decline of the Wii (it's not a) looking any shorter in the tooth b) has had 26% less releases in 2010 c) everyone who would want one has pretty much got one d) it's losing it's main natural controller USP to Sony's Move and Microsoft's Natal tech).

No, the big shock was Microsoft out-pacing PS3, considering it's motion tech offers by most accounts an inferior experience. The controller-less tech is clever, but offers no easy way to actually walk about - with games forced to move "automatically" (making everything seem like TimeCrisis). I suppose they could capture walking-on-the-spot motion, which would have the added bonus of making players look like a minister from Monty Pythons MoSW. Nice. How are Sony failing to convey the message that their faintly silly looking illuminated balls are actually less silly than Natal?

Fastest Web App Dev Ever?!

2010-09-09T03:33:00.001-07:00

Couldn't find a straightforward tool to simply capitalise text on google, so I knocked one up:

http://www.klikhome.co.uk/tools/capitalise.html

actually very useful to me this morning, despite it's 5-minute dev simplicity - so perhaps it will be useful to someone else (IF Google spiders it.)

Facebook / Twitter dividing along gender lines?

2010-09-09T01:01:00.000-07:00

This is completely anecdotal, but my female friends on the whole opt for Facebook and my male friends Twitter. This could be a coincidence, but the girls seem to like the more voyeuristic nature of Facebook, with it's photos and insight into other people's calendars. A lot of it reads like a female coffee-shop discussion, with lots of personal issues and details being aired and shared.

However Twitter, although still suffering from the banal, is more condensed, takes less time and is less personal. These may seem like negatives - but to us Boys, it fits in nicely with our more emotionally closed natures and desire to get straight to the point without all the chaff.

Are Social Networks evolving rough gender lines?

(Ian informs me that Facebook still has a place for goggling at pictures of hot friends though, apparently.)

Who Knows The Most About You?

2010-09-02T02:02:00.001-07:00

Got the below message from Twitter this morning. The devil is in the detail, and once again a big company has tried to bury their more controversial changes in the small print. Here's the big deal:

When you click on these links from Twitter.com or a Twitter application, Twitter will log that click. We hope to use this data to provide better and more relevant content to you over time.

The competition is on: who will know the most about you? Google? Facebook? Or now, Twitter?

Hi @jamestinman,

Over the coming weeks, we will be making two important updates that will impact how you interact with Twitter applications. We are sending this notice to all Twitter users to make sure you are aware of these changes.

What are applications?

There are over 250,000 applications built using the Twitter API. To use most applications, you first authorize the application to access your Twitter account, after which you can use it to read and post Tweets, discover new users and more. Applications come in many varieties, including desktop applications like TweetDeck, Seesmic, or EchoFon, websites such as TweetMeme, fflick, or Topsy, or mobile applications such as Twitter for iPhone, Twitter for Blackberry, or Foursquare.

Update 1: New authorization rules for applications

Starting August 31, all applications will be required to use “OAuth” to access your Twitter account.

What's OAuth?

OAuth is a technology that enables applications to access Twitter on your behalf with your approval without asking you directly for your password.
Desktop and mobile applications may still ask for your password once, but after that request, they are required to use OAuth in order to access your timeline or allow you to tweet.
What does this mean for me?

Applications are no longer allowed to store your password.
If you change your password, the applications will continue to work.
Some applications you have been using may require you to reauthorize them or may stop functioning at the time of this change.
All applications you have authorized will be listed at http://twitter.com/settings/connections.
You can revoke access to any application at any time from the list.
Update 2: t.co URL wrapping

In the coming weeks, we will be expanding the roll-out of our link wrapping service t.co, which wraps links in Tweets with a new, simplified link. Wrapped links are displayed in a way that is easier to read, with the actual domain and part of the URL showing, so that you know what you are clicking on. When you click on a wrapped link, your request will pass through the Twitter service to check if the destination site is known to contain malware, and we then will forward you on to the destination URL. All of that should happen in an instant.

You will start seeing these links on certain accounts that have opted-in to the service; we expect to roll this out to all users by the end of the year. When this happens, all links shared on Twitter.com or third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL.

What does this mean for me?

A really long link such as http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446563048 might be wrapped as http://t.co/DRo0trj for display on SMS, but it could be displayed to web or application users as amazon.com/Delivering- or as the whole URL or page title.
You will start seeing links in a way that removes the obscurity of shortened links and lets you know where each link will take you.
When you click on these links from Twitter.com or a Twitter application, Twitter will log that click. We hope to use this data to provide better and more relevant content to you over time.
Thanks for reading this important update. Come and check what's new at http://twitter.com.

Thanks,
The Twitter Team

Biopsy of an early HTML5 Project

2010-08-18T10:11:00.001-07:00

We've just completed our first foray into HTML5 at primvintagefashion.com
It's a simple HTML5 intro, true, but for me it was an education in what is possible / what is not with HTML5. There's lots of HTML5 functionality crammed into this small space - the CANVAS tag (which scales to fit the screensize of the device visiting) - animation loop - CSS3 (that Typewriter font is downloaded - and rendered - by your machine on the fly) and the AUDIO tag.

SO, HOW WAS IT?
Well, the javascript extensions for HTML5 are actually pretty fun. Lower level than AS3 but way more powerful than what straight javascript/jQuery offer. It's always going to take longer to build something than with Flash, but with practice you could probably get it down to about 125% of the effort. That sounds bad, but it's much better than my original thoughts of double the effort.

DRAWBACKS?
- Well, the big one - and a surprise - was the differences between HTML5 engines. It's not as standard as Jobs et.al. would like you to believe. For example, pre-update iPhones struggle to render anything at all..!
- Audio is especially badly supported. We used SoundManager (which uses the audio tag when it can, and a small flash movie when it can't) but it's really hit-or-miss whether a device is going to give you sound. If you DO get it, there's no real (certainly no standardised) way of triggering a sound at an EXACT moment. That's not such an issue with our little typewriter, but for most apps - especially games - this is ESSENTIAL. This issue alone shows that HTML5 has some way to go before it can match Flash or supplement the app store
- Performance. It's not good. At all. HTML5 javascript is SLOW on anything under a 2.5Ghz Macbook Pro - again, it's not so noticeable with this Typewriter - but the fact you can notice it does not bode well.
- Internet Explorer - until IE9 comes out, we just don't have support for IE. Sure, you could force visitors to download Chrome frame - but is that really cricket? Nope - particularly for an intro. So, we'd have to create a flash version ANYWAY - but in this case we're lucky - there are no interactions (other than to click through) so in a cunning and slightly cheeky fashion, we simply VIDEO'ED our HTML5 animation (using Quicktime screen recording) and wrapped that in a flash app!

So there you have it - an HTML5 intro that can be viewed from pretty much any device. Phew!

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT?
- It IS possible to deliver complex content to all devices - but only using a mix of HTML5 and Flash
- HTML5 has some way to go before it can properly compete with native (e.g. App store) apps or even Flash - particularly in terms of performance and sound management

WHAT WE WANT
- Proper choice i.e. Flash on iPhones/iPads, decent JS Audio support, the death of IE9-, WAY better javascript performance, a stick with an astral body atop

And finally, here's a handy chunk of the script that you can use for determining whether your visiting browser should be dealt HTML5, Flash or neither:

function isiPhone() { var agent=navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase(); return (agent.indexOf('iphone')!=-1); }
function supports_canvas() { return !!document.createElement('canvas').getContext; }
if (supports_canvas()) {
document.location.href="html5.html";
} else {
if (isiPhone()) document.location.href="home.html"; // Non-HTML5 iPhones cannot handle flash either, so skip direct to home-page!
document.location.href="flash.html";
}

The Future Of Social Networking

2010-07-27T06:23:00.001-07:00

Facebook is close to jumping the shark. IMO it is where MySpace was it '05 and steaming towards it's own doom. Why? Two things...

1. The cool kids will shortly not be thinking that hanging out with their parents (or other dweebs) is what they want to do, and fickle, shallow scenesters want exclusivity - or at least to be PART OF an exclusive group

2. People naturally have (in these days at any rate) multiple, fractured groups of real-life friends - and have a persona with each of these groups that is inherently different. You have your parents on Facebook and suddenly you don't want to post pictures of your night out; or tell your work-colleagues what you get up to, etc. Whichever service comes up with a slick way of offering these multiple personalities will be next to take up the batton - (so long as they are also cool to fulfil 1. and drive the early adopters)

What Happens When Hardware Reaches Atomic Scale?

2010-07-23T06:49:00.000-07:00

Not a great deal of thought seems to have been expended about what the wider effect will be when hard-drives, SSDs, Processors etc reach their natural limits. Our storage devices go up in density (according to Moore's law still?) and our processors accelerate because with each new cycle they are further miniaturised - packing more TB in and reducing the distance travelled by electrons round a circuit. So what happens when they reach the molecular level? I'm thinking of two things here - 1. Whether or not a theoretical physical barrier exists and 2. If it does, what are the implications for human progress, the economy, society as a whole.

1. Is There A Physical Limit To The Speed & Storage of Computers?

- At first glance, you would have thought that things cannot be miniaturised past the atomic level. This may be true - or can smaller sub-particles support computation?

- Will there be work-arounds - for example Quantum Computing taking over from traditional Von-Neumann CPU architectures - out-of-the-box solutions that make increases in computational power possible through approaches other than miniaturisation?

- Will we care - e.g. can we just keep "progressing" technologically once the physical limits are reached by "adding more and more boxes"?

2. What consequences might there be if there are physical limits?

ECONOMIC

The boom in electronics slows as "maximum speed" devices become commodity items
Computers / phones / etc do not need to be replaced on a 2 yearly cycle

CREATIVE

Software and implementation becomes King - finding new ways of using the existing tools

SOCIAL

People become much less fixated on gadgets & tech in general. The Internet - after a full generation has passed - will just be "there" and commodity devices part of the background of life. Sure, a sophisticated life - but one with tech taken for granted. Perhaps we (or the majority of people) will no longer crave / aspire to these material goods as their appeal wanes. Let's hope so - and some of the wind of individual capitalism is calmed leaving people to re-engage with creativity and community...

????

PHP HTML emails and Outlook

2010-07-07T07:15:00.000-07:00

After some considerable mucking about, I've cracked a particularly annoying and not much documented issue with sending HTML e-mails (in my case via PHP, but applies to any sendmail system) to Outlook Express / Windows Mail boxes.

It's all to do with the headers - and specifically what characters you use to escape them.

ALL lines should end with a \r\n escape sequence EXCEPT the MIME-Version: 1.0 which should be ONLY \n. Got it? This PHP works (certainly from a *nix server):

ini_set("sendmail_from", $fromAddr);

$headers="";

$headers.="From: ".$fromAddr."\r\n";

$headers.="Reply-To: ".$fromAddr."\r\n";

$headers .="Cc: ".$ccAddr."\r\n";

$headers.="MIME-Version: 1.0\n"; /* v.important NOT to put \r\n at the end as Outlook ends up escaping the WHOLE header */

$headers.="Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1\r\n";

$headers.="Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit;\r\n";

mail( $toAddr, $subj, $body, $headers );

BONZA!

3D Map Of The Universe

2010-07-06T09:26:00.001-07:00

This is amazing : http://www.ted.com/talks/carter_emmart_demos_a_3d_atlas_of_the_universe.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2010-07-06&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

I love anything that takes a complex subject matter and makes it simple to understand without removing that complexity. It's a trick to "Add Simplicity" but these guys have done it, and I admire and aspire to that.

Google Geo-location Dodgy IMO

2010-05-29T15:22:00.002-07:00

As my pal @davidpye notes, Google Chrome now has geo-positioning on my laptop. Not just any old rough guess based on my IP address, but on the button within metres positioning. (Try it out - visit Google Maps in Chrome and click the little circle under the compass).
So, how does this work? Triangulation of WiFi signals, I hear you (probably) shout - only there ARE no WiFi signals around me out here in the countryside - only MINE. The combined hardware surrounding me has no ability to geo-locate - all that Chrome has is my IP address and 1 wifi name.

Related service, Skyhook say : "This involves analyzing the Wi-Fi access points around you and your computer's IP address, and sending this information to a Google server to then be translated into a location... WPS determines location based on Skyhook's massive worldwide database of known Wi-Fi access points. "

The only technical explanation I can figure out - and correct me if I'm wrong - is that my wi-fi network has been detected and logged (probably by the Google Street View tripod). Is this alright??? Google admitted last week to "accidentally" acquiring wi-fi information whilst collecting street-view pictures. That's great - if it was an accident, delete it! No? It appears to be in commercial use with SkyHook already. Time to change my WiFi network name... if Google are smart they will just see that the same IP address is accessing and automatically (accidentally?) update their database.
Disappointingly, I'm writing this to (Google owned) Blogger using Chrome.

KlikFlow jQuery Plugin

2010-05-24T03:56:00.000-07:00

There are several jQuery sliders / carousels out there, but none did what I wanted, which was basically to take a really simply block of HTML and turn it into a really nicely animated, automatic slider with a simple bit of jQuery, such as:
$(document).ready(function(){
$("#mySlides").jKlikFlow({
width: "638px",
height: "223px",
easing: "easeOutBack",
prev: "#jFlowPrev",
next: "#jFlowNext",
duration: 1000,
pauseBetweenSlides: 2500,
auto: true
});
});

So here it is: KlikFlow jQuery Slider plug-in demo | source code

This is my first attempt at a jQuery plug-in (I thought it about time I put something back into the open source community) so your feedback is appreciated.

What Sucks About Apple Computers

2010-05-12T23:18:00.000-07:00

Let me first come clean - I am a Macophile. Since switching for Music Production purposes some 4/5 years ago I very quickly got to the point where my PC only gets switched on for testing and gaming purposes. As a techie and musician OSX is unbeatable - like comparing a MiniMoog to a Casiotone. However, Apple-philes are somewhat inclined to gloss over (or not even see!?!) the sub-standard points that are inevitably part of any system. So here's my honest appraisal of the bad bits for anyone struggling to find someone willing to dob them in:

1. Finder. Finder is Mac OSX's Explorer and it sucks. This is by far the Mac's biggest achilles heel. Why is it SO bad?

There's no tree view. This means no little plusses to quick dig deep into a menu structure then go back out to another level - or keeping two folders open in the same window to DRAG and DROP quickly between them. It gets confusing in there, and it's so difficult to traverse back
It doesn't remember where you are, so you have to start again EVERYTIME
Worst of all, there is no CUT+PASTE (incredible!). Apple must be restricted by either Microsoft patents or Job's stubbornness (perhaps a bit of both) but this is rubbish
File dialogues have crippled functionality - no delete etc from within an Open or Save dialog, which is often where you want it most. It's a) open one of your 15 Finder windows b) browse clumsily to the location c) do it from there

2. iPhoto. Ok, you don't HAVE to use this - but you have to fight OSX if you don't want to. Sync up any iPhone / iPod and zap - your files disappear into some weird, hidden folder governed by the inner mind of iPhoto. My photos are the most precious thing on my hard-disk and I like to know WHERE the files are and WHICH of the numerous duplicates that iPhoto creates is the picture I want. I like to move them between computers, back them up myself, e-mail them and work on them in applications I want to use. The commonest question I get asked by less techy mac users is "where are my photos" and "how do I e-mail one". Apparently the new iPhoto allows mail-out directly from the app - presumably to MacMail. An improvement perhaps - but most people I know use gmail.

3. Applications. So really this should be listed alongside the other Finder niggles, but it's not obvious (unlike Windows) how to launch applications that aren't in your dock. Open Finder, start a new window, browse to Applications. Similarly, installing by dragging to this folder is techie-cool but an unnatural metaphor to most. So what do we want? iPad style app browsing, and a desktop App Store equivalent for a "click to install" experience.

4. Over egged Multi-touch Love my MacBook Pro - would not swap for anything else right now, and the multi-touch pad is generally great for moving around... BUT the zoom function is on ALL OF THE TIME. This wouldn't be so bad but for the single-surface-no-mouse-button pad - I suspect I'm not the only one who sometimes rests my thumb on where the button "used to be" whilst scrolling around. The result? Desktop icons randomly enlarge to ridiculous sizes, the Logic workspace disappears into the distance, and no end of other unintended consequences...

5. Stubborn refusal to implement a right mouse button even though EVERY application, even those Mac specific have right-click functionality. I HATE reaching for the option key every single sodding time because Steve is too stubborn to admit defeat...

6. Application menu at top of screen. I've been using a Mac for years now, and I still don't understand the benefit of having your menu detached from your window - especially when running two monitors; you've got an application open on your second desktop, but it's menu is on the first screen. Handy!

7. Stubborn refusal to go "full screen". The little green expand buttons on windows don't go full screen. Apple claim you don't NEED to, as these expand to the full document size - but here's the news

EVERYONE wants to go full screen when they click this - so that their concentration is just on that application
98% of the time, Apple's idea of "your whole document" is totally different to yours
People can drag an application to another size

How about 2 clicks on the green button to offer both functions?

This is an ongoing post - please mail me contributions.

Sort these pecadillos out Cupertino, and you will have as near to perfect a user-experience as is possible with today's tech.

The Future Of Gaming

2010-04-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

It strikes me looking at the OnLive service (that allows you to play the most recent, amazing games remotely) that these guys will probably fail - due principally to the current shittiness of broadband connections. BUT - and this is a big but - the fact that they have proved that it is POSSIBLE says to me that in the future this will be completely do-able - in fact so commonplace as to be normal. Companies like Sky will eventually get in on the act, and your cable package will have a "games" option that lets you play anything - literally - without having any special hardware (other than the Sky box that will (irrelevantly) be beefier than anything around today). Sure, you'll buy games for 20 yrs or so but they will start to look antiquated - like DVDs in the face of NetFlix or CDs in the Spotify world.

So what does this mean for us here in my little dev studio in Norwich? Well, immediately, I can see that the App Store is not long for this world in the same way - we need to start thinking about delivering our rich applications and games in a hosted way - and initially that means HTML5 / javascript. Hopefully Adobe (or others) will come up with the tools to speed this development - but even before this, I will be investing in this rather than Objective C.

Let's see if I'm right, or this is our doom... (or - is this our doom or our Doom)

Apple Vs. Adobe Fight Will Fracture The Web

2010-04-12T23:46:00.000-07:00

There's a big fight happening right now: Apple Vs. Adobe
Round 1: Apple don't allow Flash in their portable browsers
Round 2: Adobe get Flash CS5 (released this week) to build AppStore apps directly
Round 3: Apple tighten the AppStore acceptance criteria to almost explicitely prevent Flash-originated apps
Round 4: Adobe gets the arse and gets Flash CS5 to build (albeit basic) direct to HTML5 Canvas

Now I am an evangelist for Apple products (because nothing touches a MacBook Pro as a hacker tool right now) but looks from here very much like Apple being the bully...

This fight is not simply spectator sport - it affects all web-developers. What it means is that we can no longer produce a single content rich (i.e. with interactive animations) site/app that will serve all browsers. Until the masses upgrade to IE9, HTML5 Canvas is just not an option and Flash will not run on Apple portable gear.

What about jQuery - I hear you cry! jQuery (or any raw javascript equivalent thereof) really is the only show in town, but whilst jQuery is great for sliding stuff around, it is way too crude to do much more than animated sliders without a prohibitively expensive (in terms of money/time) amount of JS effort.

These guys power struggle is driving a wedge through the web (and mobile development) for us all. Welcome to the non-standard, multi-build web.

MySQL Failure Following Windows Server 2003 Re-boot

2010-04-02T05:53:00.000-07:00

I've just experienced two completely independent, unrelated servers with totally different web-applications reboot and unable to start the MySQL service, one on 1st April, second on 2nd April. Coincidence? Probably. Is there a Microsoft Windows 2003 server patch killing MySQL? Not found any other incidences being Googled... let's see if anyone finds this post also experiencing the same thing...

UPDATE: This appears to have been triggered by a fire at BT on March 31st.

Timeline:

31 March 2010 07:30 hrs fire crews attended the fire at BT Exchange in Paddington, caused by an electrical fault. According to Gradwell, a business ISP, 437 local exchanges and up to 37,500 Datastream circuits have been affected. It said the fire was having nationwide repercussions on communications - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/31/burne_house_burns/

It was speculated that the systems would not be back to normal until Tuesday the 6^th of April 2010.
The BBC was alerted to the fault by IT consultant Jerry Sanders, who said customers as far afield as Potters Bar, Hertfordshire and Nottingham were reporting problems with Pipex UK broadband coverage.

The exchange was flooded for some time and power was not returned until the following morning when the traffic was re-routed.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/broadband/356917/update-bt-broadband-blackout-continues

01 April 2010 09:30 the traffic from the Paddington exchange finally makes it out along the re-routed options and hits our servers.

BT said in an updated statement issued at 8:30am this morning. "Customers in other parts of the country may also be affected."
Looks like this led to a flux of requests all at the SAME TIME when service resumed, causing MySQL to process lots of requests at once, delaying other requests, which they added to the delay and the servers snowballed into a frozen mess of MySQL connections

Why Markets are Flawed

2010-03-29T14:07:00.000-07:00

Just a note for myself really (can't imagine anyone else here being interested in economics...)

The Market Hypothesis ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis ) is a cornerstone of Capitalism, but it's ideologically flawed.

People are sheep - they follow each other. What's more, the ones who aren't sheep who should be asking "what is the true value" of some company or other, are actually asking "what are the sheep going to do". When bubbles form they are propelled even by those who can see it is a bubble. They buy even if they believe the stock to be already overvalued - if they believe others will be suckered into it for some time yet - it's all about getting out in time.

The market is beginning to understand - the FT Weekend frontpage confirmed this in UK Hedge Funds Make Millions From Betting On Decline In Value Of Sterling where it says : "The 3 hedge funds - which are the 1st, 2nd and 4th largest in Europe... do not take an active view on Sterling's fundamental worth. They use computer models to identify trends and follow them in trades that typically last several months." What happens when everyone is using computer models to see what everyone else is doing? The market becomes chaotic, based on hot air - or whatever the new tailors in town say is the emporer's new clothes (which is precisely what happened with the Dot Com bubble).

Note however that this recognition is disconnected from the reality of big bonuses and the continuing conspicuous narcissism of those involved in trading. They will ride it (with our money) as long as the train keeps running - then retire with handsome cheques / wives / sports cars / chalets, arrogance dented but still intact.

The whole idea that they should all get paid so much because of their "incredible insight" is a joke. In it's failure to recognise how humans act, the market hypothesis is fundamentally flawed and with it Capitalism in the long term is doomed to go the way of all the other great empires of history.

AI Usage In Music

2010-03-04T02:48:00.000-08:00

Two recent articles about Artificial Intelligence creating music caught my eye + ear :
1. This one about software that emulates (mostly dead) performers : http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/03/virtual-musicians-real-performances
2. And this one about software that composes : The real Tin Man : http://bit.ly/cGunrQ

Firstly, these are both impressive pieces of code - as a developer and a musician this is clear. But secondly, the doom-sayers predicting these replacing humans is garbage. Why? Let's look at each in turn.

1. This is amazing, modelling the characteristics of a performer from dusty old recordings - presumably how loose their timing was etc, and - given a decent quality midi file of a song - plays that song (on a real, MIDI'ed up instrument) in the style of that performer. You can never second guess what a real person is going to do. If I'm well pissed off one night, that will affect the performance. Similarly, when I'm chilled out, and different "me" is seen. You cannot model real artists' art, without modelling the whole artist.

2. The same affects composition too. A computer may be able to model Bach-esque compositions following the rules that Bach himself created, but it will never come up with a NEW, fully creative something. Would a computer have ever have taken the inputs of 70s prog and disco and come up with Punk??? In fact, this should be the new Turing test for AI Music - can a machine create something as emotionally charged and fresh as "Anarchy in the UK"?

Flash is not going to die (just yet)

2010-02-26T04:21:00.000-08:00

will Jobs stop trying to kill Flash? HTML5 is a poor substitute at present:

1. It's WAY slower. Javascript is interpretted and therefore slow. Alright, so Flash bytecode is also interpreted, but in it's half-pre-compiled state the optimised Flash player can crank out a much better frame rate. I made an HTML tester app here http://www.gktvs.com/html5/raycast/ to see how quickly it could handle a real simple 3D game. Not bad on my MacBook Pro, but try it on an iPhone... Can't wait to test this out on an iPad too

2. Source code cannot be hidden. With HTML 5 everything you do is open source, whether you like it or not. Therefore, if you're doing an expensive project there is no way of protecting your code from getting nicked. (note: I like Open Source, but some of my clients will not)

3. It's uncompressed. All of the code, pictures etc get delivered in their raw form, whereas flash compresses the heck out of everything

4. It has no sensible alternative toolkit. The Flash toolkit is amazing - to build complex animations in HTML5 is going to take a LOT MORE TIME (I estimate at least 3x the build costs)

5. It can't keep up with new features. Being an open standard, HTML will take longer to innovate, and Flash will always be able to introduce new features faster

6. Compatibility will keep sucking for a while. HTML 5 is not going to be a viable option for developers as the number of legacy browsers out there is huge - and IE6's resistance to death shows that this will continue to be a problem. The most up to date Flash Player works in IE6.

7. HTML 5 offers no sound control. If you've got a space-ship and you want a shoot noise when it fires - and EXACTLY when it fires - that's a pretty fundamental requirement to a game "feeling" good.

I would really like to use HTML 5's Canvas, Open GL etc. So as a developer I say, hmmm I could spend 3 times as much time (and money, if I'm paying someone else to do it) to reach 65% of my audience with a slower app that will take longer to download and can be stolen.

The trade off? It'll work on an iPhone / iPad.

When will Mr.Jobs get off his ideological podium? Did someone at Adobe steal his lover?

UPDATE : Here's some more analysis of what Flash does that HTML5 doesn't. However, there are moves within the JS community (mainly driven by iPad/iPhone support) that solve some of these hurdles... of particular note are Smokescreen - which is a basic JS based flash player(!) and SoundManager which is providing a half-decent audio option for your HTML5 app.

AddThis Add TOO Much

2010-01-31T03:03:00.000-08:00

I have a web-site which breaks every first visit because a mysterious rogue flash app was appearing (and presumably it's creators intended to be hidden) that traced back to Clearspring.com. There was absolutely no reference in the code (or in any user entered CMS area) relating to clearspring so this was bamboozling until I nailed it down to the javascript call out for the supposedly reputable AddThis.com. I thought that I was getting a convenient way to add pages to facebook, myspace, twitter etc. but OH YES AND MORE it seems once installed on your page they feel at liberty to put any manner of junk on your site.

Firstly, I don't want my pages broken.
Secondly, I don't want me or my customers to be tracked (presuming that's what this flash app does) without my knowledge
Thirdly, I don't know how well this (now trusted) intruder is written, and what potential security holes that entails. Hell, JUST RUNNING FLASH on a site that currently has none is a security risk in itself.

Basically - AddThis, you've added way too much, and that's not playing fair. Gits.

I've Got My Lithium Ion You by jamesleeds

2010-01-29T07:52:00.001-08:00

I make music, too - I've Got My Lithium Ion You by jamesleeds

Ballmer Implicated In China Attacks?

2010-01-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

In comment to the recent attacks by Chinese agencies on Google:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE60E0BC20100115?feedType=nl&feedName=uktechnology&pageNumber=4&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

Security firm McAfee Inc said the recent cyber-attacks exploited a previously unknown flaw in Microsoft Internet Explorer browser.

and

Microsoft's CEO downplayed the hacking attacks. "There are attacks every day. I don't think there was anything unusual, so I don't understand," Ballmer said. "We're attacked every day from all parts of the world and I think everybody else is too. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary."

and

Playing down the concerns raised by Google, rival Microsoft Corp said it had no plan to pull out of China. "I don't understand how that helps anything. I don't understand how that helps us, and I don't understand how that helps China," said Steve Ballmer, CEO of the world's largest software maker. Microsoft has high hopes for its Bing Internet search engine in China,

iSlate

2010-01-05T05:26:00.000-08:00

There is much talk of Apple's forthcoming iSlate. Many are predicting flop, but for me it seems like a device that needs to exist - the only reason for a flop is if it's not great to use. For example, Smart Phone web-access was guff before Apple figured out a way to navigate and zoom non-wap web-sites with ease - the rest is history. What would make an iSlate succeed? This, I believe:
1. tactile keyboard
- The screen needs to offer feedback, like a traditional keyboard, when the keyboard appears. This seems far fetched, but could be achieved with designated areas. Whether the technology can be advanced enough for ANY shape to become a "key" is not so clear. This would paves the way for something I would ADORE - which is the ability to produce piano keys and knobs. Imagine downloading apps that have their own interface! Bring on the Arturia powered AppStore mini-moog... I'd shell out the £800(?) for the device for this portable wonder alone.

2. Multi-tasking. And that's it! Combining the sizable screen and decent speed with all the benefits on an always on mobile they are on to a winner. Why? Well, taking my mother as a typical case in point, her laptop is an additional computer, which lives in the kitchen / lounge for convenience, but it's not THAT convenient. You can't operate it in your hands - you need to find somewhere to balance and open it. And it's obtrusive on your lap in the living room. Open / shut. Open / shut. You can have a tablet on your kitchen table pick it up in the morning and there are the headlines and your mail. Click to stream Radio 4 or just quickly check something like weather or a wiki before you leave. Get your TV listings (if you are old-fashioned enough to have one) - whatever.

Winner. Buy Apple + Google shares now.

When Will Barcodes Die?

2009-10-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

On the anniversary of the barcode, it struck me waiting in line in Sainsbury's that this scene - of aisle after aisle of supermarket soldiers steadily bleeping products - will seem quaintly odd in historic films of the future. I don't think we as old people will bemoan the loss of it though, however nostalgic it makes us. It cannot be long before we can walk through a single scanner with our shopping basket brimming full and it simply give us a total - perhaps detecting our loyalty card at the same time (if we are laissez faire enough with our personal information to have one) and debiting us after confirmation of the cost. Whether the technology that delivers this is RFID tags or something else.

I don't believe we'll all be home shopping by then either, as there is something about picking up your own produce that will mean people will continue to want to do their own shopping, however much they bitch about the inconvenience.

Estimated time of death? 2013

How to get PHP to run inside HTML files on IIS

2009-10-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know - I HAD to use IIS for this job, and as you are probably also aware .htaccess files do not work outside of Apache - so how to rename my .php files to .html and still get the code to run? Used to be that you had to set up a ISAPI filter to do this, but if you've updated IIS and / or PHP recently you'll realise that you are pretty much required to use FastCGI (the latest PHP installer gives you the option to not use FastCGI, but breaks everything horribly to punish you). SO once you've upgraded IIS to FastCGI and installed the latest PHP you need to do the following:
- Go into that dreadful IIS manager thing
- Right click your web-site and go into the Home Directory page on the properties
- Hit the Configuration... button and under mappings edit / create an entry for .html
- "Executable" should point to c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\fcgiext.dll
- All verbs (unless you're especially wanting to lock it down)
- tick Script Engine and Verify that file exists
- Open c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\fcgiext.ini in a text editor
- Under the [Types] section add the line:
html=PHP

Should work immediately. Bonza!

When Will Backlit Screens Die?

2009-09-30T01:22:00.000-07:00

I'm struck by a couple of anachronisms of late #1: Power sucking backlit screens.
How long will it be before I can read my iPhone screen in direct sunlight because it uses persistent pixels - offering way longer battery life, comfortable viewing for a long while, and makes it into a proper print/novel/newspaper alternative?

Resolution to Mac OSX Update Which Causes PHP and MySQL To Stop Talking

2009-05-15T02:52:00.000-07:00

Upon restarting from the lastest couple of automatic Leopard updates from Apple PHP could no longer connect to MySQL, giving the error:

Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

What this means is it can't find mysql.sock OR it's not finding the database ip you specified in your connection code. So, try this first:
- replace "localhost" with "127.0.0.1" in your PHP

If that doesn't work, you probably need to create a virtual linked file from /var/mysql/mysql.sock to /private/tmp/mysql.sock (where you are bound to have one):

1. Fire up the Terminal application
2. Type:
cd /var
ls

3. If you DO NOT have a mysql directory already in here type:
sudo mkdir mysql

4. Do the important bit:
cd mysql
sudo ln -s /private/tmp/mysql.sock mysql.sock

5. If you get a mysql_connect Access denied for user type error subsequently, try:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON database_name TO user@host IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

A New Software Licensing Model

2009-05-14T04:55:00.000-07:00

Say for example I want to use an expensive product - like something from Adobe's CS4 - but I only need to use it a couple of times a year because I'm not a designer. My options are:

- Fork out the £2.5k required to buy the product
- Get a pirate copy from thepiratebay.org for nothing and infect my PC/Mac with some hideous virus AND have to deal with carting my guilt around in a wheelbarrow (ok, handbag then)
- Cry

Not a fabulous choice. I also have a 512k broadband connection - so a clever web-based cloud version of the software (which doesn't even exist yet) isn't going to cut it for me. So how about:
- Download full software as free trial which lasts 30 days
- After which time you enter your paypal/credit card details and pay for each 8 hour chunk of usage - say £10
- Once you've paid up to the full amount of the product, it's yours and your license goes full.

This as a licensing model would help cut piracy, work for casual users, still work for heavy users, would be fairly straightforward to implement and generally make everyone's life easier. Like Hire-purchase software. Like it Adobe?

The Future Of Social Networking

2009-03-24T05:44:00.001-07:00

Social Networks are in their phase 1, where all the people are on the same site but that's not how the future will be. Many friends I have in the alternative community for instance do not feel at home on Facebook or myspace... indeed the bland middle-classness of Facebook turns me off.

Humans are tribal animals everywhere but the web, and I believe this is purely because the idea of social networking online is still in it's infancy. The drive for change will come from several directions: Cool kids will soon want something more exclusive than Facebook or myspace, or wherever the adults and other uncool people hang out. Possibly even a closed, invite only type space? Similarly, those from other communities will forge their own dedicated sites - religious groups, alternative living groups, basically all those who separate themselves in the real world.
They don't want to throw sheep, or poke - they want to share verse, or crochet patterns, or tyre recommendations - you get the idea.

This IS the future... but what I'm thinking is - do I have the resources to capitalise on it?

Installing/Recompiling PHP on Mac OS X Snow Leopard with GD, JSON + ZIP support

2008-12-08T10:59:00.000-08:00

GUIDE TO COMPILING A USEFUL DEVELOPMENT VERSION PHP FOR LEOPARD - INCLUDING GD GRAPHICS AND ZIP SUPPORT
After some substantial frustration, I have compiled (mainly for myself) a guide to improving on the default PHP installation that comes with Leopard. If you've landed here from Google you've no doubt already found that the standard Leopard PHP is basic, lacking some (IMHO) essential features such as GD for generating graphics and Zip support. You'll have also cursed that there is no readily available PHP package to update with, so re-compiling yourself is the only way.

// NOTE: Dec 09 - This ONLY WORKS FOR LEOPARD, NOT SNOW LEOPARD. SEE MORE RECENT POST FOR HOW I SOLVED THIS ON MY NEW MACBOOK PRO

This propect needn't be too daunting though - with this handy guide!

# Note: All commands below are meant to be run in Terminal

BEFORE YOU START
# You'll need some (free) software:
- TextWrangler
- XCode OSX Developer Tools (to give you a working C compiler - alternatively it's on the Mac OS X install CD you got with your Mac)
- MacPorts
- MySQL if you want it install it before PHP
# While you're installing all of these, get the latest version of the PHP source code (get the .tar.bz2 version)

# Stop the Apache server in System Preferences / Sharing (simply clear the checkbox next to web-sharing)

1. PREPARE THE SOURCE CODE AND CONFIGURE APACHE & MYSQL
# Double-click the PHP source code file to unpack it into your Downloads directory (assuming you saved it here). Next copy the code to /usr/local/src - if this directory doesn't already exist, create it (you may also need to create /usr/local ) - it's hidden and owned by the root user, so you'll have to do this from terminal:
cd /usr/local
sudo mkdir src
cd src
sudo mv ~/Downloads/php-5.3.0 /usr/local/src

# Once you've installed MacPorts (make sure you install OSX Developer Tools first) use it to get various useful image support libraries, JPG, PNG and FreeType (to use half-decent fonts in PHP generated images):
sudo port install jpeg
sudo port install libpng
sudo port install freetype

Note: if you get a port: command not found you'll need to create a new file in textwrangler and save it as .profile in your user's home directory, with these lines in it (then restart terminal):
export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
export MANPATH=/opt/local/share/man:$MANPATH
Note @ Dec 2009: MacPorts install now creates / adds a .profile, so all you need to do is restart Terminal

# Switch Apache into 32bit mode (by default OSX's Apache is compiled as a 3-way universal binary (effectively a package of 3 different compilations of Apache rolled together) so that it runs either on a PowerPC (PPC), 32bit i386 or 64bit architecture. So - your wizzy Mac runs Apache (and thus PHP) in 64bit mode by default. However, GD et al do not like this, as they are only intended (so far) to run as 32bit. Fortunately, sorting this out does not require a recompile of Apache - as the 32bit version is already in there :) - just do this:
# List httpd's architecture types (for your own information)
cd /usr/sbin
file httpd or lipo httpd -info
# Suction out the 32bit i386 support into it's own binary file
sudo lipo httpd -thin i386 -output httpd.i386
# Overwrite httpd
sudo cp httpd.i386 httpd

# These directions assume you have installed the default packaged version of MySQL in the default MySQL directory /usr/local/mysql. They also assume that the mysql libraries are located at /usr/local/mysql/lib/mysql. You now have to symlink the libraries:
# Change to the mysql libraries directory
cd /usr/local/mysql/lib
# Create /usr/mysql/lib/mysql subdirectory
sudo mkdir mysql
# Symlink the libraries
sudo ln -s lib* mysql

3. RE-COMPILE PHP
# Change to the PHP source directory
cd /usr/local/src/php-5.3.0

# You may need to create or symlink gawk
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/awk gawk

# Issue the configure command to build the make file. The one below will give you GD and Zip support, but you can add other options to this. Run ./configure --help for a full set of possible features
./configure \
--prefix=/usr \
--mandir=/usr/share/man \
--infodir=/usr/share/info \
--with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs \
--with-ldap=/usr \
--with-kerberos=/usr \
--enable-cli \
--with-zlib-dir=/usr \
--enable-exif \
--enable-ftp \
--enable-mbstring \
--enable-mbregex \
--enable-sockets \
--enable-zip \
--with-iodbc=/usr \
--with-curl=/usr \
--with-config-file-path=/etc \
--sysconfdir=/private/etc \
--with-mysql-sock=/var/mysql \
--with-mysqli=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config \
--with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql \
--with-openssl=/usr \
--with-xmlrpc \
--with-xsl=/usr \
--without-pear \
--with-libxml-dir=/usr \
--with-iconv=/usr \
--with-pdo-mysql=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config \
--with-gd \
--with-jpeg-dir=/opt/local \
--with-png-dir=/opt/local \
--with-freetype-dir=/opt/local

# Get the C compiler you installed with the OSX Developer Tools to build the executables
make

# Install your PHP executables into their correct directories
sudo make install

# Create a php.ini file (this does not exist by default on Leopard)
# For a development environment
sudo cp php.ini-development /etc/php.ini
# For a production environment
sudo cp php.ini-production /etc/php.ini

# Use TextWrangler to open the file /etc/apache2/httpd.conf (use "Open Hidden..." from the file menu). Un-comment (by removing the hash sign) the line:
#LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

# Reboot

# Apple OS Updates tend break things! So far this has been easy to fix however - just run through the "Switch Apache into 32bit mode" stage above and all is well ;)

Thanks go to http://www.malisphoto.com/tips/php-on-os-x.html
and http://zhuaxia.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!71787D3A37FFC48A!743.entry which offered most helpful guidance on the way to clarity