Teach your kids binary (Part 1: Logic)

Computers 101. It’s all magic, right? You’ve probably heard that deep down inside, computers are just 1s and 0s. Maybe someone told you that when you write a text or make a phone call everything is coded into this magical digital language of ones and zeros and then those ones and zeros are sent along some cable at the speed of electrons […]

What is Base64 Encoding, How Does it Work, and Why Should I Care?

The short answer is that Base64 can be a code obfuscator, a potential a code-envelope, or an digit shrinker. The good news is that although it does involve math, there are plenty of online tools to do all the repetitive boring stuff (what computers are good at). First, let’s looks at what is so magical about 64.

Why VARCHARs (Strings) make bad Keys.

keys

When you construct a database, you often have to make decisions based on incomplete information. Oftentimes you’re given a small subset of data and you have to decide what kind of datatype goes where, how entities naturally link to each other and when to denormalize.

There’s one debate when it comes to building out tables for databases and that’s what do you use as the key.

From C# to PHP and WordPress ( Part 2 : The Syntax )

computer languages

PHP: Get serious? PHP is quirky. It’s that odd cousin that no one really admits to being related to (Sorry cousin Rupert). It’s also very simple. It’s interpreted, not compiled, it’s got non-serious function names like implode and as a result, some think it’s not serious. People don’t REALLY think PHP isn’t a serious language, after all it runs a LOT of […]