Author Archives: Kathir 'Sid' Vel

About Kathir 'Sid' Vel

Kathir Vel is an ebusiness & marketing consultant based in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. He is an ICT specialist and also holds a MBA in marketing and strategy. Kathir enjoys photography, travelling, film appreciation, and writing.

Add a Layout Select Field to the Admin Form of Magento Custom Modules

I am coding a bespoke CMS feature for a Magento project. I wanted the client to be able to change the template / layout of each page. This is similar to the Layout selection found in the standard Magento CMS … Continue reading →

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Kathir 'Sid' Vel in Programming and tagged , .

Magento Canonical URL for CMS Pages via Layout Update XML

Magento does not automatically add canonical URLs for CMS pages. Maybe they will add this feature in the future. However, if you are setting up pages and wish to add a canonical URL using the layout update xml, you can … Continue reading →

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Kathir 'Sid' Vel in Programming and tagged .

Install, Configure & Optimise MySQL on Debian

Step 1 : Adding the Dotdeb repository You can skip this step if you have already added the Dotdeb repository while installing NGINX and PHP-FPM on your Debian Squeeze Server. We need to grab the latest version of MySQL to … Continue reading →

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Kathir 'Sid' Vel in Technology.

Install, Configure & Optimise PHP5 with PHP5-FPM

PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager) is an alternative PHP FastCGI implementation with some additional features useful for sites of any size, especially busier sites. Source : PHP-FPM Website PHP-FPM is far better than the standard mod_php implementation of PHP and also … Continue reading →

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Kathir 'Sid' Vel in Technology.

Install, Configure & Optimise NGINX on Debian Squeeze

nginx (pronounced “engine-x”) is a Web server and a reverse proxy server for HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and IMAP protocols, with a strong focus on high concurrency, performance and low memory usage. According to BuiltWith, it is used on 9.92% of … Continue reading →

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Kathir 'Sid' Vel in Technology.

How to Add the Dotdeb Repository to Debian Squeeze

Dotdeb is a repository containing packages to turn your Debian boxes into powerful, stable and up-to-date LAMP servers. This tutorial shows you how to add the Dotdeb repository to Debian Squeeze based Linux servers. Continue reading →

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Kathir 'Sid' Vel in Technology.

How to Launch a New Rackspace Cloud Server Instance

In this tutorial I will demonstrate how to setup a Rackspace Cloud Server instance. The intended use of this sever is to host a low traffic WordPress website. All settings and configuration detailed in this tutorial are tailored for a … Continue reading →

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Kathir 'Sid' Vel in Technology and tagged .

Twitter Spam : Really horrible blog about you, might want to read this…

Sitting in my inbox today was an email from a friend on Twitter. The direct message read, “Really horrible blog about you, might want to read this…“. I am aware of emails that go out to people with a very … Continue reading →

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Kathir 'Sid' Vel in Et Cetera and tagged , , .

PHP : Convert or Cast Array to Object & Object to Array

I love PHP Objects. Given an option of returning any data as an Array or Object, I would go for Objects. PHP Objects are clean and easy to write. Now to the conversion (casting) of a PHP Array into a PHP Object. Continue reading →

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Kathir 'Sid' Vel in Programming and tagged , .

Codeigniter Country Drop Down List Form Helper

Firstly, I create a helper and name it as MY_form_helper.php. This file will go into the application/helpers directory. I have extended the Form Helper as I will be using the country drop down select box in my forms.

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Kathir 'Sid' Vel in Et Cetera and tagged , , , , .
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