Through one of my clients I got introduced to Pivotal Tracker a agile approach to project management that features the normal things like stories, backlogs and Velocity.

When looking for a project management tool for my own use I ended up settling on http://unfuddle.com which while simplistic has everything a basic project needs on a single site, IE ticket tracking, source control and some sort of document management. The 2 best things about unfuddle would have to be its simple clean design/ease of use and its pricing.

I use KeePassX to store all my passwords because its multi-platform so it runs on any of the boxes I use it on but when it comes to my Mac laptop I have a couple KeePassX databases and the PITA of it has always been switching between DB's.

KeePassX remembers the last file you opened so every time I switch I have to pick the new file in another location... Its just a pain.

I have been working with Unfuddle lately and while it is very simple to use I find it lacking in a couple areas interface wise. One of the great things is they have a pretty decent API though so I thought I would start solving the short comings I saw..

This is in the very beginning stage but I do plan on adding more to it as I see the need so any input on improvements would be very helpful.

http://phpjack.com/unfuddle.user.js.source

When I bought my first mac almost 3 years ago I choose to go with the macbook pro and started using it as my primary machine.. The great thing was always having my development enviroment/vmware in hand when I traveled. The downside is apples lack of a real docking station and the inability to support more then 1 external monitor something I find extremely useful in development.

The first upload had some issues specific to the way I normally ran it and lacked any real configuration.. Now it gets its own directory path and allows you to configure the build path as well..

Its based of a Centos 5.4 Server install, PHP 5.3.1 and the latest MariaDB-OurDelta MySQL release

If you find any issues let me know and I will get them fixed right away.. Any features you would like added I would be interested in as well.

http://mtrack.phpjack.com/lab/browse.php/lab/server_setup/trunk

I compile php all the time, I am constantly installing the latest versions on my own servers for various reasons. After doing this the first dozen or so times I started creating little batch files.

It started out with a simple configure script for php so I could remember what modules I installed and easily recompile and has slowly grown beyond that.. For example a default Centos installs a ton of crap RPMS you will never use and I tend to remove them.. If its not on the server it can't be a point of entry for any reason.

Its pretty common for people to run multiple environments on their Mac's these days and I am no exception.. My tool of choice is Vmware Fusion and a Centos virtual container.. I used to use the built in sharing and had the Vmware container run its code off a local folder directly on my mac which allowed me to use my editor of choice, Coda.

Solar has a pretty easy to use Auth bootstrapping system that allows easy setup but by default its restricted to a single Auth method.

What if you want to use multiple methods? OpenID? Facebook Connect? Saml? or one of the other dozen+ solutions that you might use.. What to do? One thing to keep in mind, Auth happens really early in the bootstrapping process so things like SQL may not be available yet unless you specifically loaded it in the config.. Then you need to load the proper auth module and call it as needed..

The below code is a short example so you can see how this might work.

Back in 2007 I was playing around with writing PHP extensions I wrote PHP Extenion Creating Quick And Dirty

Things have come a long way in PHP since then and building extensions have changed a little and I am trying to buff my C knowledge so I tackled this task once again..

What came out of it is APGL Advanced PHP Gaming Library which right now doesn't include many functions (ok right now only one function) but hey if you feel this library might be of use to you feel free to contribute

If you are one of the half-dozen people who take the time to read my blog (thank you by the way) you most likely have heard about the iPad and have seen all the news flying around about it not supporting Flash and about all the sites testing Html5 video players.

One example that has come out recently is Brightcove a provide of video service and software to major players like NYT, Times. Over 1000 customers who now have a Html5 alternative to Flash.