Mo morajabi

Redirect All Requests To Index.php Using .htaccess

In one of my pet projects, I redirect all requests to index.php, which then decides what to do with it:

Simple Example

This snippet in your .htaccess will ensure that all requests for files and folders that does not exists will be redirected to index.php:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

Make it real

Ideas are cheap. Make a prototype, sketch a CLI session, draw a wireframe. Discuss around concrete examples, not hand-waving abstractions. Don't say you did something, provide a URL that proves it.

Ship it

Nothing is real until it's being used by a real user. This doesn't mean you make a prototype in the morning and blog about it in the evening. It means you find one person you believe your product will help and try to get them to use it.

Do it with style

Git-workflow vs feature branching

When working with Git, there are two prevailing workflows are Git workflow and feature branches. IMHO, being more of a subscriber to continuous integration, I feel that the feature branch workflow is better suited, and the focus of this article.

If you are new to Git and Git-workflows, I suggest reading the atlassian.com Git Workflow article in addition to this as there is more detail there than presented here.

I admit, using Bash in the command line with the standard configuration leaves a bit to be desired when it comes to awareness of state. A tool that I suggest using follows these instructions on setting up GIT Bash autocompletion. This tool will assist you to better visualize the state of a branc

File Magic Numbers

Magic numbers are the first bits of a file which uniquely identify the type of file. This makes programming easier because complicated file structures need not be searched in order to identify the file type.

For example, a jpeg file starts with ffd8 ffe0 0010 4a46 4946 0001 0101 0047 ......JFIF.....G ffd8 shows that it's a JPEG file, and ffe0 identify a JFIF type structure. There is an ascii encoding of "JFIF" which comes after a length code, but that is not necessary in order to identify the file. The first 4 bytes do that uniquely.

This gives an ongoing list of file-type magic numbers.

Image Files

What forces layout / reflow

All of the below properties or methods, when requested/called in JavaScript, will trigger the browser to synchronously calculate the style and layout*. This is also called reflow or layout thrashing, and is common performance bottleneck.

Generally, all APIs that synchronously provide layout metrics will trigger forced reflow / layout. Read on for additional cases and details.

Element APIs

Getting box metrics

elem.offsetLeft, elem.offsetTop, elem.offsetWidth, elem.offsetHeight, elem.offsetParent

	[
	{name: 'Afghanistan', code: 'AF'},
	{name: 'Åland Islands', code: 'AX'},
	{name: 'Albania', code: 'AL'},
	{name: 'Algeria', code: 'DZ'},
	{name: 'American Samoa', code: 'AS'},
	{name: 'AndorrA', code: 'AD'},
	{name: 'Angola', code: 'AO'},
	{name: 'Anguilla', code: 'AI'},
	{name: 'Antarctica', code: 'AQ'},

	app.get('/proxied_image/:image_url', function(request_from_client, response_to_client){
	sys.puts("Starting proxy");
	var image_url = request_from_client.params.image_url;

	var image_host_name = url.parse(image_url).hostname
	var filename = url.parse(image_url).pathname.split("/").pop()

	var http_client = http.createClient(80, image_host_name);
	var image_get_request = http_client.request('GET', image_url, {"host": image_host_name});
	image_get_request.addListener('response', function(proxy_response){

	/** Native NodeJS */
	var http = require('http')
	, server = http.createServer(function(req) {
	console.log(req.headers['user-agent']);
	});

	server.listen(3000, 'localhost');

	/** NodeJS with Express */
	var express = require('express')

	// String utils
	//
	// resources:
	// -- mout, https://github.com/mout/mout/tree/master/src/string

	/**
	* "Safer" String.toLowerCase()
	*/
	function lowerCase(str) {
	return str.toLowerCase();

	/*
	There are duplicate properties that seems to behave differently pending on browser version (see -moz-font-smoothing).
	This is the most consistent I've found so far between vendors.

	Please fork and improve!
	*/
	body {
	-webkit-text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;
	-moz-text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;
	-ms-text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;