But after 3 months, I am very glad to say that both the CakePHP community, and PHP programmers who are eager to learn CakePHP, has liked it. We both are very happy to know that many people bought the book and found it helpful. The CakePHP community was also very generous to welcome and appreciate our effort. I thank all who bought and appreciated our book.

I am also glad that many people took the effort to review our book. Most of them are well known figures in the CakePHP, PHP and web development communities. Here are the reviews by:

• Daniel Hofstetter (Cakebaker)
• Chris Hartjes
• Jonathan Snook
• Mark
• teknoid (dont know his real name)
• Zoltan H
• And two reviews in Amazon

I thank all of them for giving the time to review our book. The feedbacks that we got from these reviews (and our readers) were very helpful to us.

Though we had given our best efforts to make sure that the book is as useful as possible to CakePHP learners, there are still room for improvements. Here I would like to outline both the good and the bad things that the reviewers had to say about our book. Let me start with the bads:

1. Badly formatted code snippets
2. Bad proof-reading, thus typos and grammatical mistakes
3. Based on CakePHP 1.2 Beta and RC1
4. Less on the CakePHP philosophy of why things are done the way they are in Cake
5. Less information on server configuration other than Apache
6. No mention of built-in features on unit testing
7. Nothing about Behaviors

It is hard to read code from books, and even more if its not properly formatted. Also nothing worse than finding typos in a printed book. I wish our proof-reading team were more careful but I guess the pressure of releasing the book on time can be blamed here as well. As many of the reviewers pointed out, it is very hard to write upto date books on technologies that are always evolving. Our book is based on 1.2 RC1. As you may know, that RC3 is already released, and its not far that the stable 1.2 will be released too. But having said that, most of the codes in the book should be working fine (except a few that I will write about soon). Also many of the topics were deliberately left out to make the book suitable for new comers in CakePHP, and to keep the book more practical without making it a complete reference book.

Other than the stuffs pointed out above, the book has been well appreciated. Some of the good things that the reviewers had to say about the book are:

1. Its well structured
2. Quick and easy to read and understand
3. Lots of sample codes
4. Good explanations after every code snippets
5. A chapter dedicated to the often misunderstood Auth component
6. A complete sample application built from scratch
7. Detailed explanations for the more commonly used functionalities

Our main focus of the book was to make sure that it is practical oriented and easy for the newcomers to understand. All the chapters in the book are divided into parts that accomplish a single goal. Each of these parts start with a “Time for Action”, where it is outlined step by step of what is needed to be done. Then the “Time for Action” is followed with “What Just Happened”, where it is discussed in details why we needed each step. The whole idea being that the readers understand exactly what needs to be done to accomplish a task by going through the code, and not having to go through alot of literature. We also wanted our readers to go through the process of creating a complete and working application from scratch to finish. As a result, we dedicated the last four chapters of the book to create a sample application that we called the Quickwall. As we are finding out, many of our readers liked the practical approach of the book, and are getting started with CakePHP in no time.

All the interest and positive response is encouraging us to revisit our book, and help the readers as much as possible. I am planning to do a self review of each chapter (one at a time) and where possible, point out the more updated and additional information to our readers. If you have read our book, please do not hesitate to suggest to us how we can improve and make the book even more helpful

I again thank all our readers and reviewers for such an overwhelming response!

But then, I realized, that the smilies in my blog were always lousy. Yeah they are! I hate the smilies that Wordpress use by default. They look so crappy. And lousy too!

So, I decided to change them. I googled to find myself a better Smilies Pack. After going through some, I decided on Logans Smileys 0.3.5. I even thanked the creator, though I didnt understand a single word in his blog (it was written in a different language). Then I figured out where the smiley images were located in my blog web directory ([wordpress_directory]/wp-includes/images/smilies/), and replaced the old smiley images with the new ones. Oops! The new ones were in png format, where as the old were in gif. Realized that this may create problem. So googled again, and found this, and this. Then did the necessary changes, and learned a few things about the wordpress code. Lastly uploaded the new images, and the code changes. And yes, then finally some peace of mind!

Check my new smiles:

Felt lot better after doing this. Atleast the smilies are not lousy now.

And Sajib, if you are reading this, then know that I will be missing you!

While trying to make some of our legacy apps to work in the new facebook, I found that doing it is not really a very difficult task. But, unfortunately I didnt find good docs that explained the procedure clearly, and easily. Here I will try to explain the procedure with a simple example.

Suppose, in our legacy app, we have the following code to publish a news feed:

<?php
 
...
 
$facebook->api_client->feed_publishTemplatizedAction(
    '{actor} has bought {item} from The Wonderful App',
    '{"item": "' . $item_name .'"}'
);
 
...
 
?>

Now the above code will publish a simple one line news feed in the old facebook. But if the users are in the new one, this code will not result in any feed publishing at all. To make it publish feed in both the old and new Facebook, we just need to follow these 4 steps:

1. Update Facebook library classes

The first thing that we need to do is to update the facebook library classes. Download the latest code, and replace the files “facebook.php” and “facebookapi_php5_restlib.php” with the newly downloaded versions. In the class FacebookRestClient (facebookapi_php5_restlib.php), we will notice the following new methods:

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  public function &feed_registerTemplateBundle($one_line_story_templates,
                                               $short_story_templates = array(),
                                               $full_story_template = null)
  {
    $one_line_story_templates = json_encode($one_line_story_templates);
 
    if (!empty($short_story_templates)) {
      $short_story_templates = json_encode($short_story_templates);
    }
 
    if (isset($full_story_template)) {
      $full_story_template = json_encode($full_story_template);
    }
 
    return $this->call_method('facebook.feed.registerTemplateBundle',
                              array('one_line_story_templates' => $one_line_story_templates,
                                    'short_story_templates' => $short_story_templates,
                                    'full_story_template' => $full_story_template));
  }
 
  public function &feed_getRegisteredTemplateBundles()
  {
    return $this->call_method('facebook.feed.getRegisteredTemplateBundles', array());
  }
 
  public function &feed_getRegisteredTemplateBundleByID($template_bundle_id)
  {
    return $this->call_method('facebook.feed.getRegisteredTemplateBundleByID',
                              array('template_bundle_id' => $template_bundle_id));
  }
 
  public function &feed_deactivateTemplateBundleByID($template_bundle_id)
  {
    return $this->call_method('facebook.feed.deactivateTemplateBundleByID',
                              array('template_bundle_id' => $template_bundle_id));
  }
 
  public function &feed_publishUserAction($template_bundle_id, $template_data,
                                          $target_ids='', $body_general='')
  {
    return $this->call_method('facebook.feed.publishUserAction',
                              array('template_bundle_id' => $template_bundle_id,
                                    'template_data' => $template_data,
                                    'target_ids' => $target_ids,
                                    'body_general' => $body_general));
 
 
 
 
 
 
  }

Here we will be using two from the above new methods: feed.registerTemplateBundle and feed.publishUserAction.

2. Add asterisks(*) before and after token names in the template

The next thing that we need to know is to add asterisks(*) before and after any token that we use in our template. So our new template will look like this:

"{*actor*} has bought {*item*} from The Wonderful App"

I am still not sure why we need to do this, but the docs says so.

3. Register the template bundle and get the Template Bundle ID

This is the most critical, and boring, part of the whole process. In the new API, we need to register all templates that we plan to use. Once a template is registered, the API returns a Template Bundle ID that is needed to publish a news feed template. To register a template, and get a Template Bundle ID, we need to call the method feed.registerTemplateBundle. This has to be done separately, and before we start using the template. Here is a simple script that we can add to our App to register our template:

<?php
 
$template = "{*actor*} has bought {*item*} from The Wonderful App";
echo $facebook->api_client->feed_registerTemplateBundle($template);
 
?>

When we execute the script, it will print the Template Bundle ID for the template. We will need this ID later, to publish feeds based on this template. Please note that the above script is a very simplified version, and is only useful to register our example template. Also, this assumes that we are only interested to register one line story for the feeds. There are two other types of story (short and full) supported by the new API that we are ignoring here, for simplicity’s sake. We will only need to execute the script ones to get the Template Bundle ID. Lets assume that our Template Bundle ID is 73684790233. We will need this to publish the story.

4. Use feed.publishUserAction instead of feed.publishTemplatizedAction

We are almost done! All we need to do now is to use our Template Bundle ID to publish the story. But instead of using feed.publishTemplatizedAction to publish the feed, we will use the new method feed.publishUserAction as shown below:

<?php
 
...
 
$facebook->api_client->feed_publishUserAction(
    73684790233,
    '{"item": "' . $item_name .'"}'
);
 
...
 
?>

Notice, we didnt need to pass the template. Instead we passed the Template Bundle ID that we got earliar, when we registered the template. We also passed the data, just like before.

Please note that this is a simplified version of the process that we need to follow to make feeds publishing work in apps that still uses the old API. For a more detailed understanding please refer the following:

• New Design Feed Wall
• Creating Feed Stories
• New Design Platform Changes

Thats all guys! I hope this is useful. Thanks for reading.

Update: here is the video of my presentation. Aman bhai captured it and Manzil edited it. Thanks guys! Here it is:

Update 2: and here is the question & answer part that followed after the presentation

I also enjoyed the other presentations. There were some really good ones. Over all it was fun! Getting to meet so many tech people under one roof in Bangladesh is really rare. I hope we have more tech sessions like this in the future. Thanks SQABD for organizing such a wonderful event!

To start with, I have been switched from a client project that I have been working on for the last 11 months. Working on a project for that long was not easy, and to be honest, at times I was bored. So when I heard about the switch, I was really excited. But it was sad to leave the team I have been working for so long.

The more interesting change that happened is that now I am into developing Facebook applications. I have already finsihed (almost) the first one, and it seems I will be developing Facebook applications for sometime to come. So, am I liking it? Yes, I am

Another exciting update is that our (Anupom’s and Mine) book on CakePHP is finally coming out. I am really glad that we were finally able to finish it. This was our first endeavor in writing a book, and to be honest, writing a book ain’t that easy. It requires lot of planning and patience as we found out. I cant wait to get the book in my hands

So thats basically it……

Oh wait…. one other thing.. we had a wonderful recruitment session this Saturday, and I really enjoyed it. I even gave a presentation on TrippertLabs, so that was fun. I also got to meet some new people, and had a lot of healthy interactions with them. Cannot wait for the next recruitment session, I kinda liked it

That rounds it up!!!!

Knowing why I am blogging has its advantages too. I think it will make me more focused on what I am trying to achieve. And that will result in more regular blogging. So after giving it a thought, I figured the following reasons for blogging:

1. Another means of communicating with colleagues and peers: This is very important in our profession, because everyday we work with people who are located thousands of miles apart. Though online communication has improved drastically (mail, IM, voice and video conferencing), I still feel there are gaps in understanding and communication. It is very easy to mis-understand or over-understand an issue. One of the main reasons for this is that the person I am talking to doesn’t really know me that well. I am just words or voices that they see and hear in their computers. If only they knew me better, the changes of mis-communication can be minimized. This blog can be the means for my long distance colleagues and peers to know me better, and thus can help in better communication.
2. Documentation of what I am learning: I want this blog to be a documentation of all the things that I am learning about web programming (and more). I have almost a goldfish memory when it comes to keeping track of all the things that I have done or learned from my experience. There are numerous accounts of situations when I needed to solve a problem quickly, then may be after a few months I had to deal with a similar issue. But, then I see that I have no clue how I did it. This can be very frustrating sometimes. Some people may have better memory, but thats not my situation. Besides, if I am blogging about it, I can review it later whenever I want.
3. Discuss my ideas and thoughts with people:Another advantage of blogging is its power to share and discuss ideas, thoughts, practices and more. I may have figured out a clever way to solve a problem, but there might be smarter solutions from someone else. Only by sharing and discussing we can achieve better solutions to any kind of problems.
4. I love to write:This is the last and the most important reason of all. Lately, I realized that I like to write. Specially if its about web technologies and software development. So, one of the reasons this blog exist is to fulfill my desire to write. It doesn’t get more honest that this

It feels good to know the reasons behind my blogging renausance. I know all the reasons discussed above may not be unique to me. I am sure most people who blog also has reasons similar to this. But, I think, many people do not know why they are blogging. As a result, they start to put stuffs that may not be doing them any good at all. Or they lose interest in blogging. If you are reading this, and if you blog, do you know your reasons for blogging? Ofcourse, I am not saying that you must have reasons. Its perfectly ok not to have any, as long as you like blogging. But, just think about it, and I will be glad if you share it with me

As far as I remember, the first google id I registered was ahsanul.bari. Very formal and professional for an email address, but I was not happy with it. I was looking for something that represented me at that time. Also, I wanted something that was unique. One day, it just happened, that I was hanging out with Mitul, a very close friend. She was making fun of me for something very silly I did. I really do not remember what I did, but she was having a fun time “pochafying” me. I remember she asked me why did I do it. I replied that because I was insane. She laughed back, and said that no I was not insane, I was ahsane.

Later, that gave me the idea of coming up with the word ahsanity. So for people who are good in maths, this might help:

Ahsan + Insanity = Ahsanity

I opened a google id with it, and is the primary email that I use. My first blog (my second, to be completely honest) that I opened in wordpress.com was also named the same. I also use it in many other online places (just check my contact page). I know it is silly, but some how the word stuck. So, when the time came to choose a domain name, I really didnt have to think much.

First of all, I have thrown away the idea of creating my own Wordpress theme. The main reason being that I just don’t have much time. And the real main reason being that my CSS skills are like a granny. I just don’t have the patience to sit all day and get confused with all the CSS attributes and properties. So I thought it is better to just search for a theme.

But, finding a good theme is a very tough job for me. Specially when I find myself confused with what I mean by a good theme. But anyway, after trying out more than a few themes, I have finally settled down with this one. It is called Brodie, and I like it for a number of reasons. First, it is very minimalistic: no funky header images, no wanna be web2.0, and no cheap artistic touches. Just a plain simple look. I like its black and white feel. I did do some tweaking. I thought the sidebar area was too wide compared to the post area. I balanced it to follow the rule of third (or atleast that is what I think). Also few minor touches here and there. I am happy for the time being, but I have got this feeling that I will start tampering it as soon as I get some time. But regardless of that, I feel it is a really good theme. So, if you are the maker of this theme, this is for you: Thank you!

Other than that, I added a few plugins that are almost must have:

1. Akismet :to protect my blog from too much love.
2. All in One SEO Pack : Just to help myself with some SEO abuse.
3. Google XML Sitemaps : A very helpful plugin to generate the sitemap. Yes, i like those spiders, who doesn’t?
4. WordPress.com Stats : Yes yes, i know about Google Analytics. I am just too much used to this plugin. So even after registering with Google Analytics, I thought it won’t be too much of harm to add this.

So there you have it! My brand new blog is slowly coming into shape. The next thing that I am going to do after writing this post, is to write something about myself, in the “About” page. Its high time for the world to know me better!

There are still a few things that I need to tidy up, before i can show it off to the world:

1. Get myself a better template
2. Write a “About Me” page
3. Install a few plugins
4. Add some cool widgets
5. Think about what else I missed

I have been contemplating about this for a long time (honestly, this in one thing I am good at) to design my own template for my blog. But, haven’t actually manage to get some time. May be this time, I will finally do it.

I am still not sure which plugins I will need, so need to do some research on that one. Same goes for widgets.

But, anyway, let me get back to the celebration mood! Having Wordpress installed in my own space will give me the freedom to change and customize whatever I want. It will give me the opportunity to experiment with the Wordpress code. This is something that I always wanted to do.

And most importantly, I hope this new blog will get me back in the habit of writing blogs. Wish me luck