My website Blues Brothers Central has had a forum since early 2004. Initially I wrote my own basic forum, but it became clearly soon afterwards that it needed something more powerful.
Read more on Why I’m ditching vBulletin for IP.Board…
PHP Variable Preparation Function for MySQL
April 19th, 2010 
bbcentral This is a handy PHP function I wrote to prepare values for insertion into a MySQL database.
For example, if you prefer to use arrays of data and have a function automatically join them together:
$data = array();
$data['field1'] = 'value1';
$data['field2'] = 'value2';
$sql = build_sql_insert('table',$data);
// Returns INSERT INTO `table` (`field1`, `field2`) VALUES ('value1', 'value2');
$sql = build_sql_update('table',27,$data);
// Returns UPDATE `table` SET `field1`='value1', `field2`='value2' WHERE `id` = 27 LIMIT 1;
Read more on PHP Variable Preparation Function for MySQL…
I’ve Moved!
April 18th, 2010 bbcentral This blog has now moved from http://bbcentral.wordpress.com to http://www.chrisrossi.com
All old blog posts will be automatically redirected for the time being.
Don’t forget to update your bookmarks!
Why PayPal Sucks…
April 11th, 2010 bbcentral So here’s the story of how I was permanently banned from using PayPal.
In late 2008, I made a post on a web developers forum asking for someone to build a PHP script to extract thumbnails from FLV files (Flash Video). At the time I had to manually take screenshots of videos I post on my site, the point of the script was to automatically generate thumbnails of the videos as they’re uploaded (similar to YouTube). Although I’m very well versed in PHP programming, I’m not very familiar with FLV files and how to extract thumbnails (it required access to extra server software).
Read more on Why PayPal Sucks……
Bizarre Spam Email – Win this Goat!
April 10th, 2010 bbcentral Yes, this is a REAL spam email I found in my Gmail junk folder…
I don’t normally open spam emails, but they definitely caught my attention with the subject line “Chris, We’re Giving away a Casino Branded Goat!!”
Read more on Bizarre Spam Email – Win this Goat!…
Leno returns to Tonight Show…but Conan trends on Twitter!
March 2nd, 2010 bbcentral Something strange is happening right now…
Jay Leno just returned to the Tonight Show, taking over for Conan O’Brien after the recent NBC late night debacle.
But Twitter users are protesting, in their own way.
Read more on Leno returns to Tonight Show…but Conan trends on Twitter!…
I’m with Coco!
January 23rd, 2010 bbcentral 
DVD Censorship in South Australia
January 19th, 2010 bbcentral Another example of Governments gone crazy…
As of last week, the South Australian government has decided that all R18+ DVDs must be sold in plain blank covers and kept in a separate part of the store (with the pornography). This is to “protect” children from seeing the covers of adult DVDs, which will somehow cause psychological damage to them.
Read more on DVD Censorship in South Australia…
A Plea on Behalf of Web Developers Everywhere!
December 14th, 2009 bbcentral Why are there still so many people using Internet Explorer 6? It was released in 2001, since then IE7 and IE8 have been released. Windows Update has provided updates for the browser, doesn’t anyone update their operating system?
Read more on A Plea on Behalf of Web Developers Everywhere!…
Futurama Alien Sign Replica
November 9th, 2009 bbcentral 
I actually made one of these into a fridge magnet for my desk, it looks quite good!
For anyone who doesn’t recognise it, it’s a modified version of the alien sign from the Futurama episode “My Three Suns”, as seen here:
Read more on Futurama Alien Sign Replica…
Adelaide, Australia