The Fonts module manages, protects and obfuscates webfonts. Your webfonts are protected by checking HTTP_REFERER to make sure that only requests from your website will be allowed to download the fonts. Direct directory download of the fonts is denied with an .htaccess rule in the fonts directory. The physical location of your fonts is hidden with programatic access through an encoded link.

This module allows you to manage all your webfonts. The fonts are accessible for any theme you use and can be disabled for usage if you aren’t using a particular font with the active theme. This module generates an @font-face stylesheet to display your fonts. This stylesheet link can be inserted into your themes with the {{fonts:css}} template tag. You can pick up a copy of it here at the PyroCMS store for £2.

There are 2 branches of this module. One supports the 1.x.x version of PyroCMS and the other is made to 2.x.x and future versions of the CMS. As of the writing of this post, Fonts 1.0 is not on the store as they are having an internal meeting about how we’re handling 1.x modules in their new store.

I really think that the learning curve for this framework is minimal compared to some of the big names out there. I think that this is important for some less experienced programmers and some jobs that just don’t need a giant framework to get it done.

I don’t know how much I’ll be updating this framework, it really depends on the community. If it finds a place out there, then I will add to it and make it better. It also depends on jobs I get where I need to make something in ActionScript. If this framework is suitable for the project, I will probably improve upon it as I see where it needs improvement as I work.

A special thanks to Markus Winkler for taking a look and giving his input. You can check out his site here. You can follow the Cyntaxic framework on Twitter.

Also, check out the demos built with Cyntaxic. The Stickies demo is a pure ActionScript application showing off view management and the Cyntils demo is a Flex application displaying the Cyntaxic’s utility classes. The Stickies demo can be checked out from here and the Cyntils demo can be checked out from here.

CodeIgniter allows you to create views to display information passed in from the controller and the models of the application. Usually if you are sending arrays of information to display you will have to loop over the array. I like to write as little markup as possible so I nest views of markup that are reusable. I came across a problem where I wanted to load a view in the middle of a loop and have that nested view be aware of where it is in the loop. I needed the information from that position in the loop. The nested views have access to the variables sent by the controller, but doesn’t keep track of foreach iteration variables.

Here is the solution that I cooked up to get that information over to the nested view. Instead of using a foreach loop I use just a for loop and pass the iterator over in the view’s data parameter. Below is pseudocode of how this might look.

<?php for($i = 0; $i < count($items); $i++): ?>
<h1><?php echo $items[$i]['title']; ?></h1>
<?php $this->load->view('nestedview', array('i' => $i)); ?>
<?php endfor; ?>

To replace my old laptop which wasn’t even fast enough to run YouTube videos anymore, I bought the 11″ MacBook Air. I am pretty happy with it. The only thing that I can even complain about is the shiny screen. I’ve never been a fan of the shiny; it makes your screen a mirror with ambient lighting. Also, battery life is no where near the 9 hours Apple boast. I’m running just Safari now and I am at half a tank just from writing this post.

Next , there was a power outage that claimed my 23″ Apple Cinema Display despite having it plugged in to a surge protector. The monitor just never powered back up after the electricity came back. I can’t exactly tell if it was the 200 pound adapter I had to use to convert to the signal or the monitor itself that actually broke, but because the monitor was so old, I didn’t have any other device to test it with. Once again, this was an old piece of equipment and not really an unexpected loss.

One of the reasons that I kept this monitor so long was because I wasn’t a fan of the alternative monitors out there. The aluminum Cinema Display was pretty good, but Apple discontinued it before I got a chance to buy it. The new Apple lineup is a lineup of one monitor. I remember when there was three options, but the 27″ Cinema Display is all they have in terms of a lineup these days. It only comes in shiny screen. The MacBook Pro has a matte finish option, but no such luck with the so called lineup. Despite the limited options, I am a Mac dick at heart and I had to buy Apple. So, I bought the Cinema Display and I am overall happy with it. The shiny screen took a while to get used to but if you keep your room lighting a certain way, it is not too noticeable. I think the MacBook Air screen kind of prepared me for the shiny on this thing. The other thing is the cord is way too short. I had to move my computer closer to the monitor to plug it in. On the pro side, the monitor has three USB 2 ports, an awesome iSight camera that works with Skype zero config and internal speakers if you don’t have speakers already. It even has a MagSafe plug if  you want to plug in and charge your laptop. That’s if the cord will reach. I guess you just got to take the good with the bad.

Overall, I am think I have some good products that will last me just as long as my retired Apple products.

The first thing to do is to add the Twitter app to your Facebook account using the Twitter Facebook app. Input your Twitter information or just accept if you are already signed in to Twitter. Now anything you write in Twitter will show up in Facebook.

The next step is to connect your blog to Twitter. Download Twitter Tools from Crowd Favorite. Activate the plugin on your blog and go to the settings page. The plugin will ask for some very specific information from Twitter. Twitter just changed their API to OAuth and you have to jump through a lot of hoops, which is kind of annoying. Go to this page to setup a new Twitter app.

The Twitter app form will ask for some information. Fill out the form and it will give you a Consumer Key, Consumer Secret, Access Token and Access Token Secret. Insert this information into the plugin. Once the Twitter app information is saved, you are done. This will make it so your blog will send to Twitter and Twitter will send to Facebook.

Uploader creates an Uploader role (a Subscriber role with an extra uploader_upload capability) for blind file uploading within wp-admin after credentials have been input in wp-login.php. This plugin is based on the Uploadify project.