snap what?

Okay, it’s really annoying me that wordpress.com has implemented this “snap” preview window thing that pops up whenever you hover over a link. Oy!

In a search engine, this “snap” thing is wonderful — you get a little preview of the site without the time and frustration of clicking and going back, etc.

But it really annoys me when I don’t expect it and it suddenly appears in my face. And when it interferes with using a site by covering up navigation links or (usually) by blocking what I was reading. Yeah, it goes away when you mouse off, but what about those pages with a lot of links? Hard to miss hitting one and setting the preview thing off again.

I realize that it’s possible to turn it off. There is an “options” link in the corner of the snap window — click that and you have the option of turning off the tool for this site or for all sites.

But I wish I had a choice about it appearing on my blog. Hmm. Might be enough to make me move this thing to my Dreamhost account.

cURL in PHP (update)

Ironically, today I discovered the PHP manual I wish I’d found back when I first tried learning about cURL: the Practical PHP Programming wiki written mosly by Paul Hudson.  Nice, easy-to-understand cURL and PHP explanations. And wouldn’t you know it, Paul Hudson wrote the O’Reilly book PHP in a Nutshell. Where was this search result 6 weeks ago?! ;-)

Well, I did promise an update, so I’ll post a brief one based on the code I posted yesterday. Remember, I was having trouble understanding how to use cURL instead of the PHP include function, so that’s all that this covers. To learn about using cURL in other ways, head over to Paul Hudson’s wiki. :-)

cURL in PHP

Okay, I feel pretty good. (I always do when I solve a snarly code problem.)

A few weeks ago, I loaded some PHP pages on a site I have hosted at Dreamhost, and they used the include() code to bring in results from remote files.

However, Dreamhost does not allow the include code (or fopen, or fsockopen) for remote files because of “security issues.” They suggest saving the files to my local site (impossible, the files weren’t available to me) or using cURL to get the remote file or the results from processing the remote file.

New hosting account

I’ve finally taken the plunge and purchased a hosting account at Dreamhost.com. This blog may eventually move to my new account, but for now I’m using the hosting for freelance and art projects.

If I ever do move this blog, I’ll be sure to notify my subscribers (both of you) so you don’t miss a thing! ;-)

I can’t help but drop a plug for Dreamhost here. For a mere $9.95/month ($7.95/mo if you pre-pay for 2 years), you get:

• 200GB storage
• 2TB bandwidth
• Another 1GB of storage and 16GB of bandwidth is added to your account every week (as of this posting)
• 1 free url registration for life of account
• Hosting of unlimited domains and subdomains
• Unlimited MySQL databases
• Easy installs of:WordPress blogs, Joomla! content management system, Zen Cart (e-commerce), Gallery (photo management on your web site), and forums
• More goodies like guestbooks, hit counters, Flash-based media player, Quicktime streaming, polls, Web calendar and Jabber™ chat
• Tech: Debian Linux servers, PHP, CGI,  Ruby on Rails, Htaccess/Webdav, FTP and Web-based file management
• …why am I still typing? If you’re interested, check out the site. :-)

If anyone knows of a better deal, please post a comment and let me know!