Home of all things tech!
MattyBatty
Hey there, welcome to my bio. First off, I'll tell you a little about myself. I'm Matthew Battison (AKA MattyBatty), I live in the UK, and I like web design, maths, reading and games. This site is where I put all of my tech articles. Whether that's tutorials, reviews, news, or just general tech gossip. I hope you enjoy reading my articles, and remember, you can keep up to date using my handy RSS feed!
Homepage: http://www.mattybatty.co.uk/
Posts by MattyBatty
I’m Back!
Oct 27th
Nope, you’re not dreaming, I really have updated my site!
I’m back! After taking a rather long break from posting, I have decided to return. Hopefully I will get back into a routine and there will be some good quality posts in the next few days/weeks.
In the meantime, you can check out the official twitter page here. I hope you’re looking forward to some new posts. See you soon.
Weeks 3 & 4 – What to Expect
Aug 9th
I am going on holiday now – in fact – as you are reading this, I am already on holiday! Unfortunately, this means that I will not be able to update the blog.
Do not worry though, I will be filling the next two weeks with Phil Battison’s General Tech articles and a couple of Christopher Robert’s posts. I hope you enjoy reading them and that you look forward to my return.
Bye.
PHP – Fun with Functions
Aug 7th
Hopefully you are pretty secure with the basics of PHP by now. If not, you should read part 1 and part 2 of this series. This part is about functions. What are they; how do you use them; and how can you utilise your own functions? Functions can be a great tool to speed up your coding and to make applications run much more smoothly, so let’s go!
What are functions?
Functions are blocks of code that can be called upon at any point in the script to perform a particular task or ‘function’. There are more than 750 functions built into a normal install of PHP, but you can define your own too, making them very versatile and easy. More >
PHP – Your Next Steps
Jul 31st
Assuming you have read my basic introduction to PHP, you should have a fair understanding of what PHP is, how to write it, and how to assign and manipulate strings and numbers. In this tutorial, I will be teaching you about Arrays, Loops, and ‘if… else…’ statements. So, let’s get started.
Arrays
Say you had a big long list of related variables that you needed to store. For example, names of people. You could store them in separate strings, as you learned before, like this:
<?php $name1 = "Matt"; $name2 = "Harry"; $name3 = "Bill"; $name4 = "John"; ?>
However, doing this makes it difficult for them to interact with each other and makes looping through them all tricky. These problems can be solved by using an array. An array uses ‘keys’ to link the strings together in one variable. There are three types of array: numeric, associative, and multidimensional. I’ll leave out multidimensional arrays for now, and focus on numeric and associative as these are more common and easier to use. I will use a numeric array in this example, as there is only one factor linking the variables, the fact that they are all names. More >
Week 1 Round-Up
Jul 26th
As you probably know, this blog recently had a complete re-design, and I have been on this new design for a week now. So… I thought I’d give you a little summary of how it has been going and how the blog will change as a whole.
As for the system itself, I am very pleased with the outcome. WordPress has exceeded my expectations and I will definitely be continuing to use it. In fact, I’m so pleased, I would love it if you tried it too!
I would like to say a personal thanks to both Christopher and Harry for being the first people to comment on my blog. I hope other people will get more involved, as this weekly round-up will also be for answering your questions and comments.
Thanks for sticking with MattyBatty.co.uk! Why not take a minute to rate my site so far…
How would you rate my site so far?
- 4 (50%, 3 Votes)
- 5 (Best) (33%, 2 Votes)
- 1 (Worst) (17%, 1 Votes)
- 3 (0%, 0 Votes)
- 2 (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 6
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PHP – The Basics
Jul 24th
PHP Logo
PHP has grown from nothing to become one of the most popular languages on the web. This is mainly because of it’s simple syntax, easy usage, and seamless integration with MySQL and other databases. It’s also free, which makes it a great tool for developers when designing interactive and
dynamic content. In fact, my blog is powered by the open-source software WordPress.org, which is written in PHP.
What is this ‘PHP’ thing?
You may be thinking “wow, it sounds great, but what is it?”. So here are a few points about PHP:
- PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (It’s a bit of a paradoxical name if you ask me!)
- PHP is a server-side scripting language, which means the scripts are executed on the server – before the user sees any output. (This is similar to ASP.net)
- The opposite of server-side is client-side. JavaScript is a client-side scripting language.
- Although PHP is free and open source, you need a server to run PHP, you can’t just access it in your browser. Common servers include Apache and Microsoft’s IIS.
- PHP files have the extension .php / .php3 / .phtml
What do I need?
To be honest, you don’t really need much at all! A simple text editor such as NotePad or TextEdit will suffice. I use NotePad++ for various reasons, outlined in my review, but mainly because of it’s syntax highlighting. You could also try NotePad2 for a more lightweight option.
Also, as I mentioned earlier, you need a webserver to parse the script. This means you will need to host your files somewhere. This could be locally, using a package such as XAMPP, or you could buy hosting, but make sure they offer PHP support. (Most hosts will, as PHP is free and open source.)
Got all that? Good, let’s start writing some code! More >
Using OO-PHP To Connect To A Database
Jul 20th
With OO-PHP, you can dramatically speed up the coding process, and re-use code much more effectively. OO-PHP stands for Object Oriented PHP. This means it uses objects, which are collections of properties and methods, rather that a bunch of variables and functions.
Also, as the object is stored in an external file, it can be accessed from any of your pages and used anywhere on your site. This makes objects especially useful. A good example of this is using an object to connect to and interact with a database. In this example, I will use MySQL; but the beauty of objects is that you can change that one file and all the pages will be updated, which makes changing between databases easy! More >
Nokia 6220 Classic Review
Jul 20th
My Nokia 6220
It may not be the best looking phone on the market, but the Nokia 6220 Classic has just about everything I need from a phone. This phone ticks all the boxes. A 5MP camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, 3G internet, GPS Navigation and a MicroSD slot, all squeezed into the sleek, ergonomic design. This is clearly a business-oriented smart-phone, but I believe it’s greatest strength lies in it’s incredible camera and instant photo-sharing ability, making a digital camera virtually redundant!
Not only do you get all these gadgets, you get them in a neat little package weighing only 90g and measuring just 108x47x15mm. Not bad for a smart-phone! Because of this, you won’t have a problem handling it, especially with the matt backing and logical key placement. Beware however, the placement may be logical, but the material certainly isn’t! It looked great in the box but after just one use the front of the phone was awash with smudges and streaks. I can’t imagine trying to text whilst enjoying a greasy meal! More >
Week 2 Round-Up
Aug 2nd
Posted by MattyBatty in Site Updates
1 comment
Another successful week for MattyBatty.co.uk, and plenty more articles for you to interact with. Remember, this isn’t just about me, you can get involved too, just set up an account and start commenting! If you don’t feel like commenting yet, you can still keep up to date using the RSS feed or the E-Mail subscription (Box on the right).
I would like to say congratulations to Harry for being promoted to author. He now has posting rights so you will be seeing a lot more game and film reviews from him in the future. Check the upcoming posts list regularly to get a sneak peek at what’s in store!
Finally, I would like to let you know that I am going on holiday in the next few weeks, so there won’t be as many posts. However, there will be some as I am in the process of scheduling and spreading them over the course of my holiday.
Oops, almost forgot, we can’t have the weekly round-up without the weekly poll and results!
Result of Last Week’s Poll (How would you rate my site so far?)
4/5
This Week’s Poll
What would you like more of in the future?
Total Voters: 4