When using data providers in your phpunit tests to run the same test for N different sets of input data it is sometimes helpful if you can run the test for just a specific data set from the command line.

If you find yourself trying to connect to a MSSQL database in your Symfony 2 project that is running on Linux you will soon discover that it does not work. Even if you have figured out how to connect to MSSQL with PHP itself as outlined here.

In my quest to type less because I am getting lazy I am trying to automate as much as I can. Something that is a bit tiresome in Symfony2 is to have to specify the --env flag for each run on the command-line if you do not wish to run in the default built-in dev environment.

Update: The video from this talk given at KarlsruheJS is now available here.

In January 2015 I gave a talk at the FrankfurtJS Meetup on this topic and it generated quite a bit of interest. The motivation behind it was actually quite selfish, I needed a bit of pressure to dive into Ember.js a bit more and what better way to do that than to try and explain it to a room full of people?

By now most front-end developers have certainly heard of Ember.js and many have even given it a try. I therefore tried to combine an introduction with a bit of current information on the framework as well as the Community around Ember.js.

There have been significant changes in the past 6 months that in my opinion warrant another look at the framework even if you have evaluated it thoroughly before.

I have been using the */n syntax for the minute field for some time now to run a cron task every “n” minutes starting at the top of the hour.

What I did not realize is that

*/5

is actually equivalent to

0-59/5

which basically means: run every 5 minutes starting at the top of the hour (0).

So if you would like to run every 5 minutes starting at 2 minutes after the hour you would simply specify

2-59/5

Other examples:

5-59/15 run at 5, 20, 35, 50 minutes

1-59/2 run every 2 minutes starting at 1 minute after the hour

Ember.js provides a few really nice features out of the box to let you sort your records for display purposes. In the docs there is a short paragraph about it (SORTING) that does not tell the whole story so be sure to click the link about the Ember.SortableMixin for some more information.

Yesterday marked the beginning of the 5th (fifth!!) month, yes, MONTH(!!), that I have an open and unresolved support ticket with SpiderOak. I nag them every few weeks and then they go quiet after a brief exchange and a promise that they are working hard to resolve the issue.

Please note that this was published in January of 2015. So keep in mind that the shelf-life is limited

The following is a helpful list of where to find current information on Ember.js:

The express docs claim that you can simply install the express-generator globally and use it to generate application skeletons.

When developing packages or Bundles for your Symfony2 project it is nice to be able to manage them in their own repository and have Composer deal with installing them in your test project. This is a bit slow and quite cumbersome if you are using something like GitHub since you have to push changes to remote and then Composer has to pull it all back down.