So, assignment #2 for my PHP/mySQL class was to create a page that will convert a numeric value from Celsius to Fahrenheit or vice versa. I started out this morning writing on my big marker board to write out all the stuff I had to have and process.

That part went pretty smoothly so I sat down to start coding the stuff on the board. But, when I uploaded the file I was in dismay as the calculation functions were obviously doing something, just not the right thing. After a couple of hours on and off it (doing other stuff that actually paid) I finally realized I had left the “$” off of a variable in both calculation functions… AMAZING! No telling how many sets of working code I had been through before discovering that.

So I finally got it working… or so I thought. The page is supposed to issue a error message if the input field is blank or if it has non-numeric input. Mine did that, but it also issued the warning when you loaded the page before any input. UGH! Back to debugging. I finally figured that out and all was going very well… or so I thought…

So when I tried to convert “0″ from either F to C or C to F the page just kind of stared back at me with nothing. I looked over the formulas and saw nothing that could be wrong so I emailed my professor about it. He was kind enough to tell me I had discovered a nuisance in PHP. It seems that “0″ is considered empty by PHP. So, there was nothing to convert, and it was neither empty or non-numeric so it did nothing. First he told me to play with using the === operator (which I had done early on when I was missing the $ in the variables) and then he suggested the is_null() fucntion. Shazaam! Put that on in and all was great… problem solved!

Or, so I thought. Another problem which had always been there, it just was not till now I could test to see it. When you enter 32 F to convert to C the result is seen as… you guessed it… empty by PHP. Now I have that conundrum to solve. Oops.. solved it by using the same is_null() instead of empty() again in the output.

YAY! Done. Here’s the page. Now, wonder if I can give a visual diagram of this output like last week?

Today should be fun. For the last couple of months I’ve been helping Dan Borgman over at vendorHIPPO.com with some stuff. We’re about to switch him over to a new site later this week so we have lots to do.

One of the things Kendall Media Group is coming alongside the HIPPO to provide is video services for the markets and vendors he’s working with. And, Dan wants to do some video on the site as well. So, today we’re going to shoot an intro video as a “welcome to vendorHIPPO” piece for the main page of the site. We’re shooting it at the Twenty Ninth Street Market in Boulder, CO so we have an authentic backdrop. It should be lots of fun and I’m hoping for some great outtakes to bribe Dan with.

… we landed in Denver for a scouting trip with our good friends Ray and Katie Carman. We looked around at several communities to see what the housing market was like. Sad to say, the housing market then was better than now, well for sellers anyway. We had not even put our house on the market at that point. We did so when we got back and five days later it sold leaving us three weeks to be out.

It’s been an interesting year. One month later we were actually here in Denver and moving our stuff into two storage units until we could find a place. WOW how time flies. Kinda like how it’s flown between my blog posts the last couple of times.

And on an interesting note, I was at a restaurant this week sharing lunch with a friend when our server (another friend) came up and told us that until moments before she thought she had seen it all as a server. Seems another server’s table/guests left a $5 bill and a hand full of coupons (some were actually expired). At first we thought the folks had actually left the coupons as the tip. Then when we found out about the $5 bill we were more inclined to believe the guests were merely cleaning out their coupon envelope or something and left those as trash. But, what a funny thought. Anyone out there leave coupons or something other than money as a tip for your server (not counting those of you who leave tracts… I know about that one)?