GadCode

TheGad's repo for random coding tips and practices.

[gadcode]

[gadcode]

I just setup subscription billing for schoolFeed.com using Stripe, and they are an absolute joy to use. It has some of the cleanest, most developer friend docs/APIs I have ever used...a start contrast to working with PayPal.

I highly recommended checking them out if you want to quickly start accepting Credit Card payments (one-time or recurring) in your web or mobile app. You can literally be up and running in a few hours. The only downside is that their rates rates are decent (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction), but you can definitely get lower transaction rates with some alternatives (ex. PayPal, Amazon Flexible Payments). One option is to use them to quickly get payments setup with minimum hassle, and when you start raking in the cash you can switch to a cheaper but more complex solution.

[gadcode]

Coding Tip #1

Whenever building anything more than a simple script for personal use take the time to setup a robust unit-testing and debugging framework. It will slow you down in the short-term, but the long-term benefits of being able to quickly and efficiently fix bugs and quickly churn out error-free code will more than pay for themselves in the long run.

[gadcode]

Python and Google App Engine

I've been (very) slowly learning Python and playing with Google App Engine for the last month or so. This weekend I decided to kick it into high gear and spent nearly 20 hours hacking together a project. All in all I am extremely impressed with app engine. I can't comment on how well it scales (yet), but the entire service is incredibly logical and fairly well documented. So far I'm a big fan!

[gadcode]

[gadcode]

A nice overview of some useful tips for boosting your JQuery performance

[gadcode]

If you develop web apps you probably work with 3rd party APIs a lot (or perhaps even plan on implementing your own). Many of these use some version of OAuth, and here's a great 2-part article explaining in simple and clear terms with a PHP example using Twitter's API how OAuth 1 works.

Part 1 Part 2 

[gadcode]

Quick and easy description of how to setup SSH tunneling on windows using PuTTy. Particularly useful for setting up SSH tunnels to mySQL databases!

[gadcode]

My new favorite programming soundtrack

Looking for some great (mostly) lyric-free music to program to? Pick up the Tron Legacy and Tron Legacy R3CONF1GU3D soundtracks. The original Daft Punk tunes plus the remixes by Crystal Method, Moby, The Glitch Mob, and more are perfect tunes for an intense coding session!

[gadcode]

I'm currently taking the (free!) online Stanford Machine Learning class, and it's great so far. There's still probably time to sign up, so check it out! They're also offering an AI class (http://ai-class.org) and db class (db-class.org). It's like I'm back in school again =)

[gadcode]

Vizzy is an excellent app for viewing the output of trace statements within SWF files. For Vizzy to work you need to have the Debug version of Flash Player installed. In order to use Vizzy with Chrome you also need to install the default Flash Player embedded in program. Check out the attached link for exact details on how to get Vizzy up and running!

[gadcode]

Just started using SmartFoxServer 2X for one of my current projects. Highly recommended if you're trying to create a massively multiplayer web game with real-time interactions. 

It's robust and powerful, but incredibly easy to use. You can also try the full version for free with support for up to 100 concurrent users!

[gadcode]

Great if you've already mastered one and are looking to quickly get up-to-speed on another!

[gadcode]

The basics

Passing a set of DOM elements from a jQuery selection

Manipulating the DOM elements

Returning the jQuery object so that you maintain chainability

Read the full article

[gadcode]

A DOM element within the context of a jQuery callback function

A jQuery object within the context of a jQuery function definition.

[gadcode]

Why cookies fail for a small percentage of your users

I spent the last few days hunting down a bug that was breaking the new user flow for a very small number of users. It turns out we didn't have a Compact Privacy Policy, and as such our cookies were being rejected for some users (mostly IE users with very high privacy settings). To understand why this happens check out this article on Sitepoint.com: P3P, Cookies and IE6.0: A Case Study. Also note that this isn't just an issue for IE6, even in IE9 if your users have medium-high or high privacy settings they can run into this problem.

You can then use this free tool to generate the necessary P3P files.

[gadcode]

Easy way to kick off async server processes from the client side.