slashnode.

So in your templates, you might be tempted to do something crazy like this…

<?php $request->getParameter("parameter_name") ?>

Silly rabbit.

Luckily Symfony, in all its awesomeness, provides a nice variable called $sf_params to make life easier. Try it out:

<?php if ($sf_params->has('param_name')): ?>
<?php   echo $sf_params->get('param_name'); ?>
<?php endif; ?>

Even better:

<?php   echo $sf_params->get('param_name','default value'); ?>

Disclaimer: I should mention that this post relates specifically to the Telstra version of the OS. Your experience may differ.

OK, I have to admit I’m a little late on this one. My Telstra-branded HTC Desire only just updated a couple of weeks ago, so I’m only just getting around to experiencing the new version of the OS now.

I have to say, there’s quite a few noticeable differences between 2.1 and 2.2 – some good, some freaking excellent, and a couple not so great. These are the changes that stood out for me:

Wifi Hotspot. This feature is AWESOME. It basically turns your phone into a Wireless router so that you can use your 3G internet where ever you are. You set up a WEP security key, an SSID for the network and you’re ready to go. I did experience some connectivity issues with my Macbook Pro, but I’ll put it down to dodgy phone reception for now.

Flashlight app. Basically what it sounds like; an application that turns your handset into a Flashlight. Very basic but well executed.

New button on texting screen for easy multimedia messaging. Now you get an option next to the Send button on the messaging screen that allows your to quickly and easily attach rich media to your messages. I’m not a massive MMS user, but I’m sure this will come in handy for some people.

New Incoming Call screen. Now the “Swipe to Answer” button is colour coded. The bottom edge which is associated with answering the call is Green, while the top side (for rejecting the call) is Red. A nice touch. One thing that did slightly annoy me thought was the update to the image displayed when someone calls who either isn’t in your phone book or is in your phone book but doesn’t have a photo associated with them. For some reason I liked the old look.

Change in the way contacts are sync’ed. I’m not 100% sure what the story is with this one, but I noticed upon upgrading to the new version ALL of my contacts from Gmail, Facebook, etc started appearing in my phonebook – whether or not they actually had a phone number associated with them. Slightly annoying.

For those after the detailed run-down, the official change-log can be accessed from here.

Users may have noted today that the GMail interface was switched up today by the design guys at Google. The changes seem to be shifting GMail towards a function-centric interface, whereby the layout of the page reflects the function you are currently using Gmail for.

See below:

You’ll note the 3 main functions Google are expecting their user-base to perform in Gmail;

• Mail based tasks
• Contact management
• Scheduling / ToDo based tasks

Clicking the “Mail” button brings up the usual GMail interface. Clicking “Contacts” brings up a list of all contacts in your address book with fields for email and contact phone number. Finally, clicking “Tasks” triggers the “Tasks” widget to pop-up in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.

One thing I love about the new layout is the positioning of the “Compose Mail” button. I always found it slightly convoluted to create a new mail message; especially considering this was the main reason I was in GMail in the first place. The new position of the button is just about perfect.

Nice work Google!… too bad about Google Wave…

Facebook have hinted on many occasions that they would be reducing the page width of Applications built using their Pages feature. There seems to be a lot of confusion and misinformation about this; mainly, I think, because it was actually stated that Pages would start to have the new width rolled out to them in Late 2009 / Early 2010. Obviously this didn’t happen.

Now the FB team have come out and announced on the Facebook developer’s blog that the new width will DEFINITELY be rolled out, starting on the 23rd of August 2010. And the reduction is significant. Currently pages can be as wide as 720 pixels (px). This will be reduced to 520 pixels…

So what does this mean for developers with existing pages? It means if you don’t adhere to the new width of 520 px, your pages are going to look horrendous. Luckily the FB development team have stated they will provide a tool to allow developers to test their layouts in the new format the week before pages start getting rolled over into the new width.

For more information check out the Facebook developer’s blog.

It’s moments like these that I need to stop and remind myself that the Google search engine is not just a technical miracle – but is also, from the perspective of an end user, a pretty damn good product.

Case in point: I went to a client’s Facebook Page to make some changes today and was (more than) slightly irritated when clicking on the ‘Edit Page’ button resulted in the page hanging. After 10 minutes of frustration and testing in 4 different browsers I decided there must have been some deeper cause for the problem. Enter Google.

I entered the first query term that entered my thoughts: “can’t edit facebook page”. I tried the first result which didn’t immediately answer my question. Sensing that my problem would most likely be a recent occurence, I clicked the ‘Latest’ filter from the menu on the right-hand side. Bingo. I was greeted with the following:

Facebook error Google Query Results Page

The Yahoo! Answers page and accompanying Tweets answered my question: the Facebook ‘Edit Page’ function has been broken all day. Let’s hope they resolve this issue as soon as possible – luckily the changes I wanted to make aren’t urgent!

But the moral of the story?… Live Search is here – and it works!