Sam’s random musings

Christmas Chuckle:

One particular Christmas a long time ago, Santa was getting ready for his annual trip….but there were problems everywhere. Four of his elves got sick, and the trainee elves did not produce the toys as fast as the regular ones, so Santa was beginning to feel the pressure of being behind schedule. Then, Mrs. Claus told him that her Mom was coming to visit. This stressed Santa even more.

Then when he went to harness the Reindeer, he found three of them were about to give birth and two had jumped the fence and were out, heaven knows where. More stress.

Then when he began to load the sleigh one of the boards cracked and the toy bag fell to the ground, and scattered the toys. So, frustrated, Santa went back into the house for a cup of coffee and a shot of whiskey.

When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had hid the liquor and there was nothing to drink. In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the coffee pot and it broke into hundreds of little pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found that mice had eaten the straw it was made from.

Just then, the doorbell rang and Santa cussed his way to the door. He opened the door and there was a little angel with a great big Christmas Tree. The angel said, very cheerfully, “Merry Christmas Santa. Isn’t it just a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you, Isn’t it just a lovely tree? Where would you like me to stick it?”

Thus began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas Tree.

(thanks Jim)

(Via alexking.org: Blog.)

Design Patterns in PHP - Factory Method and Abstract Factory

When developing larger, more complex systems though, object creation can become difficult. There are situations where different objects may need to be created based on different conditions or based on the context of the object creating it. Creating objects of concrete types explicitly in code can make these situations a nightmare when it comes time to make revisions and additions. When a new class is introduced, you get to follow a trail of code and commence the hours of debugging that will inevitably follow such an endeavor. This is where design patterns come in.

Good basic overview of what factory patterns look like in php

Cross-Column Pull-Outs:

Print designers like to wrap text around images that sit between columns. Now you can, too. Daniel Frommelt takes us where no web layout has gone before.

Wow this is a really nice technique.

(Via A List Apart: for people who make websites.)

Google Suggest Dissected:

sammykrupa writes “Google suggest Javascript code dissected and rewritten for all of you web developers out there. Cool piece of web reverse-engineering!” Joel Spolsky astutely notes that this will raise the bar in terms of how people expect the “internets” to work.

Should be interesting to dig into

(Via Slashdot.)

Community News: PHP-Help.net Announced:

Matt has written in to let us know about a new PHP help site that has just come out to be announced - PHP-Help.net.

This will be something to remember

(Via PHPDeveloper.org.)

THE ad:

If you don’t read The New York Times, here is the most important double page spread ad from it!

(Via CreativeBits.)

<

p>U.S. Newspapers and RSS:

I’d been looking for a list like this for quite a while…here are over 150 local, state and national U.S. newspapers with RSS feeds. And that doesn’t include international papers. I just think that’s pretty amazing, and there is no doubt that number is going to grow.

Right now, every student in my school could have a free subscription to the New York Times, Washington Post, Dallas Morning News and a whole bunch of other really respected, well-written newspapers.

(Via weblogged News.)

Georgia O’Keeffe:

“I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn’t occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.”

(Via Motivational Quotes of the Day.)