Geekalicious

Eager Load nested relations of a MorphTo in Laravel Eloquent ORM

Mon, 09 Dec 2019 20:21:00 +0000

Polymorphic relations give us a very useful flexibility is specific cases. In this article we’ll see how to proper eager load nested relations based on models with polymorphic relations using Laravel’s default ORM Eloquent.

Automatically issue free Let's Encrypt SSL certificates on cPanel shared hosting

Thu, 05 Dec 2019 22:20:43 +0000

For a while now it has become “mandatory” to use SSL certificates to get the green lock on HTTPS. In this post you’ll see how to automatically issue free SSL certificates with Let’s Encrypt and FreeSSL.tech on shared hostings running cPanel.

Set cmd.exe permissions to applications or sites served by IIS

Thu, 03 Oct 2019 22:00:00 +0000

There may be times when you’ll want your website or application to run commands while being served by IIS. In order to do so you’ll need to set permissions to the user that runs your website or application.

Conditional field validation with ParsleyJs

Tue, 18 Sep 2018 12:05:00 +0000

In more complex forms it can be useful to validate one or more fields based on what the user selected on another field. For instance, make field A mandatory when the option X is selected and make the field B mandatory when the option Y is selected.

Manually set up DNS SRV record for Office 365

Mon, 03 Sep 2018 17:03:00 +0000

It’s increasingly common to manage the emails of a company with cloud hosting services like Office 365 or Gmail and it’s natural to do so as it reduces the costs of maintaining the server and guarantees a stability to the service that might not exist when using proprietary or shared hosting.

Changing the email management service requires you to update the DNS records so emails are forward to the new server. Most of the times you just need to update MX record and the TXT spv record but when it comes down to SRV records it might not be that simple.

About this blog

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 15:48:00 +0000

This blog was created to share my knowledge and experiences on the most diverse subjects, but obviously focusing especially on everything related to software development. The blog was created in 2015 and the initial idea would be to have articles regarding several areas and several writers. But because everything is changeable in life, it has taken a slightly different direction, just me as a writer. By the way, I’m Luís Cruz, nice to meet you!

Integrate Multibanco payments with Easypay payment gateway

Sun, 05 Nov 2017 00:22:00 +0000

Let’s see how we can create Multibanco payment references and how to fetch payment notifications when using the Portuguese Payment gateway Easypay.

Make sure you’ve read the previous article, and take a look at this package that we’ll use as a wrapper for our API requests to Easypay.

Introduction to payments gateway Easypay for Multibanco and DD payments

Wed, 01 Nov 2017 19:12:00 +0000

In this first article of a series I’ll show you the first steps to integrate Portuguese Easypay payment gateway with your software so you can use Multibanco and SEPA Direct Debit payments in an automated fashion.

You can expect to see what you should consider and take into account when you need to integrate Easypay with your software. What I’m writing here is a direct result from my personal experience with this payment gateway system.

Convert OpenDocument and OpenXML documents to PDF

Sun, 01 Nov 2015 23:29:00 +0000

In the previous article I’ve introduced you to OpenTBS which is a class able to create and edit OpenXML and OpenDocument documents in PHP, extremely useful for report generation. But what if you need to provide the documents in PDF for the final users?

In this article I’ll demonstrate how you can convert OpenXML or (preferably) OpenDocument reports to PDF using LibreOffice or OpenOffice. All this using PHP.

Create OpenXML and OpenDocument reports with OpenTBS

Sun, 01 Nov 2015 12:04:00 +0000

It’s a common requirement in web applications to be able to export data to the end users. The most common format is CSV but in more advanced applications you need a complex system that’s able to create reports with charts, tables and in a specific disposition for the users.

In this article I present TinyButStrong, and OpenTBS, that allow you to create and edit OpenXML and OpenDocument reports in PHP.

Choose WSDL operation when you need NTLM authentication in PHP

Sun, 20 Sep 2015 23:31:00 +0000

After the last article where I’ve shown how to consume WSDL Webservices with NTLM authentication, I present a particularity about that method.

The difficulty occurs when there’s more than one WSDL operation with the same name (that is, there are overloaded methods). When you don’t need NTLM authentication, the solution is rather simple, but when you do need NTLM authentication you need to be a little creative.

Consume SOAP Web Services with NTLM authentication in PHP

Sun, 26 Jul 2015 23:12:00 +0000

To be able to consume SOAP web services with PHP you need to install the PHP-SOAP extension. However, the SoapClient class provided by that extension does not allow NTLM authentication.

Before we go into the solution I would like to thank Thomas Rabaix for his blog post on March ‘08 about the subject. Indeed, his post is the real source for all the solutions online. If you hadn’t read the article I suggest you to do so.

Integrate SonarQube with TeamCity and Redmine

Wed, 22 Jul 2015 23:18:00 +0000

For the past weeks I’ve wrote a series of articles on how to create a continuous integration server which began with the article Tools for a Continuous Integration (CI) server for PHP projects.

You can automate much more than what I’ve shown in this series of articles, specially front-end processes or automated tests and I hope you got to a point where you can investigate and start to tweak the continuous integration process to match your needs.

Analyse a Laravel 5 (PHP) project with SonarQube

Sat, 18 Jul 2015 00:52:00 +0000

In the previous article we’ve installed SonarQube and SonarQube Runner. Now that we have the tools, let’s analyse the Laravel 5 project that we’ve created in the second article of “How to set up a Continuous Integration Server for PHP projects”.

This series or articles begun with the article Tools for a Continuous Integration (CI) server for PHP projects and teaches you how to create a continuous integration server from the scratch.

Install SonarQube and SonarQube Runner on Linux Mint

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 23:25:00 +0000

One of the most neglected processes in Software Development is the ability to know how exactly is your project’s health. To do so you need a complex and periodic analysis to ensure your project’s maintenance is sustainable. There are several tools that help you to perform such analysis and among them is SonarQube.

In this article, which is part of the series “How to create a continuous integration server” and began with the article Tools for a Continuous Integration (CI) server, I’ll show you how to install and configure SonarQube and SonarQube Runner.

Install and configure TeamCity Agent on Linux Mint

Fri, 03 Jul 2015 00:42:00 +0000

Following the previous article where you’ve installed TeamCity, you can now say that you have a Continuous Integration Server. But it doesn’t do much without an Agent or a Build Configuration.

What is this? A Build Configuration is a list of steps that will be executed. Think about merging all less files and compact all the files into a single minified .css file. Another step from the same configuration could be uglify Javascript files (or, following the same logic of the first step, parse CoffeeScript into Javascript).

Install and configure TeamCity 9

Tue, 30 Jun 2015 23:36:00 +0000

TeamCity is a Continuous Integration aplication, developed by JetBrains that supports multiple programming languages (such as Java, .Net and PHP). Although it’s a commercial tool, there’s a freemium version that allows you to use it freely with up to 20 configuration builds and 3 build agents. If you have an open source project, you can apply to a free licence. Check the licencing page to know more about this.

Install Redmine 2.6 on Linux and integrate with Git

Fri, 13 Mar 2015 18:55:00 +0000

Redmine is a project management software, developed using Ruby On Rails and multiplatform. It’s a flexible application with a growing community.

In this article, which is part of the series “How to setup a Continuous Integration Server for PHP projects”, we’ll show you how to install Redmine 2.6.1 on a Linux Mint 17.1 machine and how to integrate it with Git so you can see Git history within Redmine and how to close issues with commit messages.

Install SSH and Git on Linux (Continuous integration part 2)

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 17:52:00 +0000

In the second article of the series “How to set up a continuous integration server” we’ll install Git and SSH on a server running Linux Mint.

We’ll show you how to configure this services on a Windows machine so, in the end, you push your code from a Windows development machine to the Linux server.

Tools for a Continuous Integration (CI) server for PHP projects

Fri, 20 Feb 2015 23:12:00 +0000

Continuous integration is a software development practice where programmers integrate their source code changes frequently and whose goal is to detect errors as early as possible.

This is the first article for a series where we’ll show how to create a continuous integration server for PHP projects. In this first article we analyse the tools that we’re going to use.

SEO: Improve your search ranking

Thu, 12 Feb 2015 23:51:00 +0000

SEO has been around since the 90’s and has evolved ever since. The goal is to improve your site or blog visibility, so it appears on the first page of a given search.

Nowadays search engine algorithms are clever but you still need to adjust some parameters to show your pages on top of search results. To this end, we’ll talk about semantic URL, important and irrelevant meta tags, social meta tags and how you can keep track of your SEO.

Change date format with Javascript

Tue, 03 Feb 2015 12:33:29 +0000

Inserting data into forms is one of the most trivial tasks for any application. Most of the data is simple like inputs, radio buttons, checkboxs or textareas.

There are, however, some field types that have been causing controversy about the best way to fill those fields. In this post we talk about date fields and how you can format the input in order to provide an easy-to-use application.

Events and objects in Parsley.js

Sat, 10 Jan 2015 00:44:15 +0000

Sometimes it’s useful to trigger some actions when your form of field is validated.

Parsely 2.x allows you to use trigger events to this end. Events can be used to change DOM elements or to get access to the list of error messages for the form of fields. We’ll also take a look at the objects created by Parsley and how do they work.

Custom validations with Parsley.js

Thu, 08 Jan 2015 13:59:36 +0000

So you’ve read the basic Parsley usage and it’s enough for simple forms. Now you have a few more complex validations and you don’t quite know how to get there.

In this case, take a look at this post where I’ll show you how to use custom validations, build by you. I’ll also show you how to submit your form via AJAX when it’s validated by Parsley.

How to validate your forms with Parsley.js

Wed, 07 Jan 2015 19:30:00 +0000

In the contact form of your site or your application’s forms, it’s essential to use form validation.

There was a time when a form was submitted and there were errors and the user had to provide all the information. These days this is unnacceptable and a serious issue regarding to user experience and usability.

In this post we are going to introduce you to Parsley.js, a lightweight and flexible form validation Javascript library that relies on jQuery.

Our personal data and our Privacy

Wed, 07 Jan 2015 19:30:00 +0000

I value your Privacy as much as my own. As you may though I also use AdBlockers and VPN and my current browser is Firefox and not Chrome. My smartphone has the bare minimum Google Apps (yes, custom ROM). This is to say that this blog doesn’t have: Cookies Facebook pixel Google Analytics Hotjar e derivados As open as I can be, this blog uses Google Fonts, Font Awesome for icons and the plugin Prism.